Afraid to dream
by Ertal77
Summary: Starting over in Germany with Noiz has its ups and downs, and Aoba starts to feel too addicted to the pills he must take to keep his headaches at bay. What happens when he stops taking them was probably easy to foresee. Follow-up to "A latte for Fritz". If you haven't read it, take in mind this story takes place before the visual novel events, when Aoba is 19 and Noiz 16.
1. Chapter 1

Aoba rubbed his eyes, yawning, still trying to get rid of the remains of sleep that refused to let him go. He stepped in the bathroom and washed his face with only the dim light that arrived from the bedroom.

"What are you doing here in the dark? You don't need to save on the electricity bill or anything, you know…"

And just like that, there was suddenly light, bright and bluish, hurting Aoba's eyes, still used to the gloom of the bedroom illuminated only by the early morning sun coming from the window. Noiz turned the fluorescent of the bathroom on, walked past him, shoulders brushing when he leaned on the sink to spit toothpaste, gargle, spit again and then reach for the towel. Then he leaned in to press his lips against Aoba's cheek and, as fast as he had entered the bathroom, he was gone again. Aoba sighed at hearing the characteristic sounds of slides of fabric against skin, and wiped his face, avoiding his own reflection on the mirror. Noiz was done in the bedroom before Aoba could finish brushing his teeth.

"I have to dash, babe, or I'll be late!" the blond boy told him, waving while he walked towards the main door.

Disappointment made his way up Aoba's throat, but he tried to put in his voice all the easiness he didn't feel.

"You are not having breakfast, then?" he asked.

Noiz was already putting his jacket on in the hall, and then his shoes: he had picked the habit of leaving his shoes at the entrance of their apartment in Japan, and now that they were in Germany he had followed with it. Not only for Aoba's sake, but also because he found it neat. The boy hummed before answering.

"No time left. I'll have a coffee at the school if in the end I have two spare minutes before the lessons start… Do you have German lesson today?"

 _Why does he ask?_ , Aoba wondered. _He knows my schedule better than me_. But he thought Noiz was asking for the sake of conversation, as if he felt a little guilty for leaving Aoba on his own the whole day.

"No, not today", he answered anyway, shaking his head. "Remember, I go on Mondays and Wednesdays. But I have a composition to write, and I also should revise the verbs for the next exam…"

Noiz nodded, his hand already on the handle of the door, and Aoba reached for his schoolbag and handed it to him, smiling. Noiz didn't exactly smile back, but Aoba was trained by now to be able to read the tiny nuances of his boyfriend's face, and what he could read/guess from the slight twitch of his brows and the tense little pull of a corner of his mouth was a ' _thank you_ ', and also a ' _I'm sorry for having to go now, I hope you don't feel too bored or lonely while I'm not here_ ', so Aoba rushed to kiss him goodbye with his best smile on place.

"You better go now!" he said. "Have a nice day, study hard and don't forget to eat!"

"I'll be back as soon as possible", Noiz mumbled, walking out the door and starting to run down the stairs.

Aoba sighed and closed the door. He turned and faced the apartment. The empty, small but comfortable apartment.

"Well, well…", he said aloud.

They had been in Germany for three months then. They lived in middle-sized town, but bigger than Midorijima. Aoba quite liked Karlsruhe: he was surprised at first by how clean and green was the town. Downtown the buildings were only four or five stories at much, and the streets were wide, and there were airy squares, so comparing it with the high and chaotic layout of Midorijima, with its abundant dark and narrow back alleys, Karlsruhe was a paradise. And, besides, it had plenty of parks and even a zoo. The first month there was packed with pleasant surprises, and Aoba couldn't get enough of the town and its lovely coffee shops and small parks. Noiz and he had strolled for hours every day, until Aoba felt confident enough to walk on his own without being afraid of getting lost. More often than not, he still had to use Ren to help him navigate the streets, of course, and he also needed him to translate the strange German street signs for him…

Because German had been another thing altogether. Aoba had never been good at English at school… Well, in fact the few times he had attended middle school he wasn't too fond of studying, no matter the subject. If he had a better English base, now German wouldn't be as tough as it was being… So two months of lessons so far, eight hours a week and tons of extra exercises to do at home, and he still wasn't able to speak German at all, except for introducing himself. It was maddening.

He came back to their bedroom and started Ren up. The dog immediately offered a light and bubbly bark and wiggled his tail.

"Guten morgen, Aoba!"

"Aaaaargh, Ren… Please don't."

"I apologize. But in order to get you used to the German language as soon as possible, you should be exposed to it the more the better."

Aoba sighed and took a fresh exchange of clothes from the closet.

"I know, I know… But I get enough exposition to it every time I try to watch tv or listen to the radio, or go outside, don't you think?"

"If you say so."

Aoba chuckled at the acquiescing formality of his words. Although Ren was a robot, Aoba knew perfectly well what he was thinking, Ren's disapproval easy to spot behind his words. He took his clothes to the bathroom and started the shower. The spray of water on his back made wonders to his mood, finding himself humming to some song he had half stuck in his brain during the last couple of days.

"Aoba."

Ren's voice arrived from the doorway, hesitant, and Aoba just hummed as an answer.

"Why are you showering without turning the light on?"

Aoba froze on the spot, and hurried to finish.

"I can see quite clearly with the light that comes from the bedroom, Ren. Don't worry, I'm not going to slip on the bath or anything like that. See? There's even a safety grip."

Ren watched him as he wiped himself with a towel, swaying his tail, and Aoba could feel his uneasiness, not at all convinced by his words. He kept silent, though, until Aoba was finishing putting his clothes on.

"But there's a reason for it, isn't it?"

Ren turned and walked away all of a sudden, without pressing further, to Aoba's surprise. He was tempted to call him out ( _Is this a normal behaviour for an allmate?_ , he wondered for a moment. _Ren has always had a strong personality for being an allmate, but this… isn't it a bit odd?_ ), but in the end he let it pass. He had enough with the prospect of the day: sitting with his German grammar book and go over the verbs they had studied again, and then coerce Ren into helping him with his composition. Aoba groaned, and wished, not for the last time that day, he betted, that Noiz was there with him a little more.

That first month with Noiz in Germany had been so good… Even if his parents hadn't been very nice to them, even if he couldn't understand a thing of what people was saying, being with Noiz, finding out so many new things with him had been amazing. But September was there before they could notice, and the summer was gone. Noiz started school again, and after school he was working at his father company. It was just a couple of hours a day, and the whole Saturday morning, but Noiz and Aoba still resented it. Aoba wasn't ready to find a job yet, although he was trying, but with no knowledge at all of the language it was almost impossible. And Noiz' father had been less than happy to know the conditions under which his eldest son was returning to Germany. So Noiz had to accept at least to assist his father in the afternoons and ' _learn the job_ ', as his father had put it. He had also accepted to attend the Engineering Faculty when he finished the secondary school, in two years (although he had reassured Aoba that, if he didn't adapt to Germany, they would come back to Japan as soon as his current school year ended, as he had promised back in Midorijima).

So Noiz had his future already laid in front of him… and Aoba was somewhat jealous of that. After all, he was already nineteen, and what kind of future had he carved for himself? He didn't have studies, or a job, and he was starting over in a foreign country with a foreign language, with only his beloved boyfriend as a strong point. He missed his granny, he missed Mizuki and his friends, and sometimes he missed his old life so much that he had to say it aloud to himself that, in fact, everything was more or less the same than before. He could talk through Skype with granny and Mizuki, or send coil messages. He was as useless in Midorijima as he was in Karlsruhe, and it had taken him ages to find a steady job in the island. So everything was the same, or so he told himself.

The only thing that was in fact different… Aoba bit his lower lip in annoyance and tried to focus on his daily routines. Breakfast. Checking emails and messages. Taking out his German books and notebook.

And then a rush of pain, intense, unbearable pain ran down his entire being, starting in his brain and creeping down his spine, paralysing him.

"Aoba! Are you alright?" Ren's voice seemed to come from far away. "Have you taken your pill today?"

"My pill…" he mumbled, standing up his chair.

He tottered through the sitting room towards the bathroom, and then he stood there for a moment, in the almost darkness.

"Turn the light on, Aoba", Ren reminded him, with a strange edge in his voice.

Aoba reached for the switch. The light above him turned on, and Aoba found himself staring at his reflection on the mirror in front of him.

And then, exactly as he knew it would happen, the voice and the eyes that had haunted his dreams last night, and the nights before that, looked back at him from the mirror, and Aoba couldn't tell for the life of him if said eyes and voice were inside his mind or he was having some sort of hallucination.

 _Let me go. You thief! Give me back what's mine._

The eyes on the mirror were hard and cold. They had a golden glint, and they looked eerie on his face, because the features he was seeing in the reflection were definitely his. His tight line of a mouth, his still wet long hair, his pale skin tinged bluish thanks to the fluorescent light of the bathroom.

 _You can hear me, I know you can… I'm going to destroy you, I will destroy you until there's nothing left of you._

Aoba shuddered and covered his face with his hands. He felt Ren's small forepaws on his knee.

"Aoba! Are you feeling alright?"

He couldn't answer, his throat dry and clenched all of a sudden.

"Aoba… Please take your pill and lie down on bed for a while."

 _That's a good advise_ , he thought, and he reached blindly for the cabinet where his pills were. He took the pill bottle and managed to open it and put one inside his mouth without looking again at the mirror. He put the bottle away again and walked out the toilet as fast as he could. Following Ren, he lied down on top of the bed covers. The room was too lighted to take a nap, and his headphones were somewhere in the sitting room, but he closed his eyes all the same and breathed deeply to calm himself.

"I'm much better now, Ren, thank you", he whispered, sensing Ren's presence close to him.

"But you still haven't swallowed the pill, Aoba. Do it now." Ren placed one paw on his forearm, as if to reassure him with his presence, and the young man noticed the allmate was right and the pill was still in his mouth.

Last night he had dreamed that he was shut in his bedroom back home. He had everything he could want within his reach: his music, his magazines and books, his computer and his videogames. But he couldn't go out. He wasn't hungry, nor thirsty, but he became more and more annoyed until he started to feel desperation drowning him. He banged on the door, and called out for his granny, but it was as if the only thing that existed in that reality was that bedroom. The view from his veranda looked suddenly fake, like a set design, and although he didn't try he was a hundred per cent sure that, if he tried to jump down the street, he would just bounce and get back to his bedroom.

And he had _memories_. He remembered being with Noiz, a longing painful memory. He remembered going out at night, playing Rhyme, fighting with his fists and throwing kicks to someone, no mattered who. He remembered the feeling of freedom, but also uncertainty and fear, and feeling reckless, needing to run away until he clashed with something or someone. Those memories were… somewhat painful to Aoba when he thought about them the next morning. And that feeling of being locked up was dreadful. In his dream he was really, really furious in the end, and although he couldn't take a look at himself (there wasn't any mirror in his bedroom), he was sure the eyes he had just seen in the bathroom were the ones of the Aoba in his dreams.

His tongue found the bitter taste of the pill, which was starting to melt inside his mouth. It was rather disgusting and he should swallow it before the awful taste could set in his palate, but he was hesitant. Somehow, during the last two months, he had developed a strange distaste for the pills. He knew his granny made them for him, especially for him, and they helped him to feel more stable and kept his headaches away. But wasn't he turning into an addict? The headaches had started to be more frequent all the same, and he didn't want to raise the dose of medicine until he depended on them completely, no matter how much he trusted his granny.

The bitterness started to spill across his tongue, the pill almost fully dissolved into his saliva, and he finally sat up and reached for a bottle of water, wiping out the disgusting taste in two long sips. He sighed and rubbed his face, annoyed.

 _Alright, I suppose I can keep taking these pills for a bit longer_ , he said to himself.

And he did so. Until he didn't any more.

He decided to quit taking them one morning without any further thought, and the pill bottle remained on his cabinet, completely abandoned, from then on.


	2. Chapter 2

Aoba opened his eyes and, for a moment, he felt lost. That wasn't his bedroom. Where was he? Sitting up on the bed, he looked around, and although the room was oddly familiar, he couldn't place it. His confusion was starting to feel annoying, but then it suddenly came back to him.

 _Oh_ , he thought. _This is the apartment I dreamt about… Germany._

Was he dreaming right then? Aoba wrinkled his nose. He didn't feel as if he was dreaming. Everything seemed real. He stood up and walked around the bedroom, taking in every little detail. It was late evening, and the sun was starting to set at the other side of the window, behind a bunch of buildings that didn't remind him to Midorijima at all. Ren was in sleeping mode, lying down at the feet of the queen-sized bed. He opened the closet and skimmed through their clothes. Noiz' and his.

 _Noiz_. He felt a sudden lump in his throat. Where was Noiz? Dream or reality, Noiz had to be there, if that was Germany…

Not daring to call him aloud, he resorted to stroll through the small apartment, looking for him. The apartment consisted only of a kitchen attached to the sitting room, big and airy, with huge windows facing the street, their bedroom with the only bathroom in-suite and another small bedroom, almost unfurnished. Everything looked new and elegant, and Aoba got a sudden flash of Noiz and himself buying something at Ikea. Was it a dream or a memory? He wasn't sure any more, and his head was starting to ache.

 _Fuck! Try to focus! For once you are out of your bedroom, do something!,_ he shouted to himself.

There were some language books on the sitting room table, and a piece of paper. It was written in German, and somehow he could understand the words.

' _My name is Aoba Seragaki. I'm nineteen years old. I am from Japan, from a town called Midorijima. I live now in Karlsruhe. I like the town. I like the parks, the houses and the streets. I also like listening to music and playing videogames.'_

Aoba sighed. _Wow, so that's the amount of German I know_ …, he thought. _Get ready for having awesome conversations._

Then he finally noticed the note on the fridge, stuck under a magnet with the shape of a slice of pizza.

' _I didn't want to disturb your nap, so I'm going to study to a school's mate house. I'll be back for dinner. Noiz.'_

Aoba felt a rush of longing while staring at Noiz' handwriting. Everything seemed more and more real with every minute. His mind started to run, thoughts piling up without order, and he finally stepped in the bathroom and took a look at his face on the mirror.

There it was, the confirmation he needed that everything was happening for real. He wasn't dreaming. He was out there, in the world, free at last. He watched with intensity the light brown eyes that looked back at him from the mirror, full of fear and uncertainty, at odds with the expression of the rest of his face, and smirked.

"It's my turn now, dear", he said aloud to the person behind his reflected eyes. "You are not the only one who is entitled to have fun, you know…"

 _Let me out! Please…_

Aoba heard the words inside of his mind, sobbing, and he could imagine the other Aoba banging at the walls of his bedroom. _Well, good luck with that_ , he thought. _I've had enough confinement, I'm going out right away!_

Some hours later, he staggered through the streets of Karlsruhe, trying to decipher the indications of his coil to walk back to their apartment, and failing completely. He laughed almost manically at that, though. It was good to be out.

Once in the street, he had spent hours strolling through busy streets, parks and even residential zones. He didn't look once to the town maps on his coil, too busy watching everything to mind where his feet were leading him. It didn't matter, in fact. Besides, he observed how people used their coils to pay in the shops and bars, so he didn't even have to be concerned about having money on him or not. He was sure he would have enough in his account to pay for a taxi, if he needed one, or for a couple of drinks.

And as the evening gave way to full night, he decided to enter a bar and take a look at how German people entertained themselves. After that, all started to be a bit blurred.

He remembered smiling back to a girl with matching blue hair, and the girl pushing a pill inside of his mouth with a smirk. That had seemed actually great to him, because he didn't have a clue of how to get drugs in that town. He didn't even know how to ask. He remembered following the girl and some other people to another bar, with louder music… After a while, he was on his own again, but there had been more bars. The last one was a club, and his eyes had caught a cute blonde on the dance floor, and had come closer and danced with him for some time; the guy reminded him strongly of Noiz, and he couldn't help himself and kissed him. Despite the alcohol numbing his mind, he was alert in case the blondie wasn't into guys and he ended getting a punch. The good news were the boy _was_ into guys and grinned mischievously after the kiss; the bad news were the guy had a boyfriend, actually, a sturdy fellow who wasn't amused at the least with the sight, and grabbed Aoba by the back of his shirt and threw him to the street, not before giving him a round of kicks in his stomach and his back as a goodbye token.

 _All in all,_ he thought, _an awesome evening._

He couldn't remember the last time he had went out, but it was surely _ages_ ago. He felt revitalised, exhilarated, free, after all that time being forced to be locked. He felt as if he could do everything he wanted, everything. Even the beating had been most welcomed, making him feel fully alive. And it had helped him to sober up a little; in all honesty, when he was at that dance floor he realised he had drunk so much that, as soon as the alcohol kicked in completely, he would lose all control and would end the night vomiting and sleeping on the floor of wherever he found himself at that moment. In those cases, usually drugs helped to counteract the effect of alcohol, but it didn't seem to be an option right then. Dancing until he sweated it out or getting into a fight were also good second options. So when he stood up and started to study his coil for orientation, he at least was able to stand and walk with something resembling a bit of focus.

He kept getting lost, though, and around one a.m. it started to seem less amusing. He suddenly thought of Noiz. Wasn't he arriving home at dinner time? Aoba cursed himself; to think he could be with _Noiz_ right then… He felt a painful yearning and his eyes prickled. _Shit. Noiz._

He finally managed to get home, relieved, his feet aching as much as his chest. The first thing he saw was a blonde head lifting from behind a laptop screen and raising an eyebrow. Aoba clenched his fists and tried to control himself. He wasn't going to cry like a toddler. He stepped forward a few steps and then he stood right there, barely inside their sitting room. Slowly, a crease started to form between Noiz' brows and he pursed his lips. Aoba tried to read those little nuances on his face, gulping, watching his boyfriend as he stood up and approached him, stopping some feet away, looking him over and obviously realising the state he came in.

"I was doing a team project at Damian's place", Noiz explained, with his monotonous and calm voice. "Since you weren't here when I came back, I ordered a pizza. I was a bit worried when I saw you didn't have Ren with you, and that you didn't answer my message."

 _Oh, was there a message in my coil?_ , Aoba thought, still unable to speak. _I didn't see it._

He opened his mouth to try to say something, but the prickling in his eyes suddenly worsened and the lump in his throat wasn't helping the situation. At all. Before he could help it, he tasted salty tears in the corner of his mouth.

And all of a sudden Noiz lurched forward and enveloped him in a tight hug.

"It's you, isn't it?" he whispered in his ear, and Aoba could have sworn the boy was trembling. "You are back."

Aoba sobbed and let go of everything that was choking him. He hugged Noiz back, mumbling his name in an endless litany. After a long while (minutes, hours, _eons_ could have passed and Aoba wouldn't have minded), he started to feel more in control of his emotions. He wiped his face with his hand and smiled at Noiz. The boy, serious, watched him intently, as if he was studying every little change in his face.

"Have you missed me?" Aoba asked in a purr.

"Of course. Lots", the boy said, finally offering a tiny smile. "Come and eat some pizza, and then I will clean those bruises for you."

Aoba gripped the front of Noiz' shirt, preventing him to walk away.

"I'm not hungry. Let's go to the bedroom."

Noiz smirked.

"You reek. You sure you don't want to shower first?"

"Am I so disgusting?"

Aoba laced his fingers behind Noiz' nape and gave a tentative lick to the boy's lower lip. The shudder which with his movement was received was quite flattering to Aoba. He smiled wickedly into Noiz' kiss, allowing the boy to hold his waist and pull him towards their bedroom, their mouths still locked and unable to let go of the other.

Noiz pushed him onto the bed and sat by his side, and they took their clothes off between kisses. Aoba couldn't have enough of his mouth, not after so much time. He wondered for a moment how many months have it been; time was a confusing thing when one was confined and day and night started to blur and mix. He had a passing thought of asking Noiz, but he forgot almost instantly, too focused on how good it felt to have Noiz kneeling in front of him, on their bed, while they touched each other's bare skin with almost reverence.

"You are a wreck…" Noiz whispered with a smirk. "It's so typical of you to get into a fight as soon as you come back…" Then he seemed to remember something, and frowned, reaching for the bruised spots on Aoba's face and caressing them, adding a bit of pressure. "Does it hurt?"

It stung, in fact, but Aoba didn't mind at all. He enjoyed it, that little amount of pain that made him feel more alive, and Noiz obviously still remembered it.

"It's fine", he replied, smiling, and wondered not for the first time if Noiz was jealous of that, unable as he was to feel any kind of pain.

Noiz insisted on the touch, and kept looking for bruised skin to caress while he ran his hands through Aoba's body. The young man's breath started to get caught, and he reciprocated twitching a nipple, hard. Noiz hissed and grinned. The boy reached for the lube on their nightstand and started preparing Aoba. Their kisses turned sloppier as their focus started to spill around more pressing parts of their bodies, and Aoba grabbed Noiz' neck tightly, panting. It felt so good… He had missed this so much. When he decided he was okay to go, he pushed Noiz' hands aside and straddled the boy's waist, positioning himself. He went down on his boyfriend's dick, lowering his hips slowly, feeling his insides getting stretched inch by inch. Noiz knew better than to move when Aoba rode him, and waited patiently and allowed him to make all the work, his hands under Aoba's thighs to help supporting him. Not that Aoba needed it, anyway. He started a rhythm immediately, a slow and torturously pleasant rhythm, moving his hips up and down and in circles, feeling the slight pressure in his thighs, but it would take a while until his legs started to ache. Once he was fully seated, Noiz embraced his waist and nuzzled his clavicle, murmuring sweet nonsense into his skin.

"My sweet Aoba… My beautiful Aoba… I love you so much…"

That last bit made Aoba freeze. When…? How…? He obviously had missed some developments in their relationship, it seemed. It made his blood boil with rage.

He leaned back, leaving Noiz hugging the empty air, and placed his hands on the bed behind him, for balance, pushing his hips onwards until Noiz cock was still deeper inside of him. The boy gasped, and Aoba focused again only on his movements and his own pleasure. He didn't even notice how loud he was moaning by then. He felt his insides completely full and about to burst, in a way that was slightly painful. His own dick jumped up and down freely with each thrust, dark red and leaking in earnest as his prostate was rubbed against in every drive. He wanted to beg Noiz to touch it and give him the release his body was shouting for, but the boy looked completely gone and wrapped in his own pleasure as well, his eyes shut and his mouth contorted in a silent cry of agony. And when Aoba thought he couldn't really stand it any more and his body was about to explode from the stretch and the pleasure, with or without his dick entering the equation, Noiz suddenly pulled out and leaned down to kiss his mouth. Confused, Aoba let him do.

After the kiss, Noiz grabbed his hips and forced him to turn over, positioning Aoba on his hands and knees, and Aoba relinquished control without struggling. It was Noiz after all.

There was one thing Aoba was certain, and that was when the exact moment he fell in love with Noiz was. It was the second night they spent together.

Aoba had started being rather promiscuous as soon as he hit puberty, heavy petting first, then things got serious. He didn't mind if they were male or female, but he did have a clear preference for the first. What he had always clearly in mind, too, was that lending his body to a stranger to have a good time was one thing, but giving up control was another thing altogether. It didn't mind if he was bottoming (he loved it that way, in fact), but he was always the one who decided what they were doing and exactly how they were doing it. When he found a guy who just wanted to manhandle him into whatever he was into… well, Aoba could take care of himself pretty well. It was their loss if they ended the night with a broken nose and aching blue balls for being a stubborn dumbass, after all.

And then Noiz arrived.

It had seemed him so cute at first, that kid coming to see him everyday at the coffee shop, stealing glances at him. His crush was so obvious; the brat did nothing to pretend otherwise. He was too young, of course, but it made Aoba's heart warm, and after a couple of months he realised he was really looking forward to the moment of the day the boy would appear at the coffee shop door. It had become the brightest moment of his days. But then he lost the job, and with that Noiz disappeared from his life, and in fact he didn't think of him at all until the next summer, when he met him again at a rhyme ground.

Honestly, it was the last place he expected to find the boy. He had grown up, too: he didn't look as skinny as before, and he was already as tall as him. His lovely kid face was the same, though, apart from some piercings scattered here and there. _He really likes those metal chunks_ , he thought then, amused. But the boy had refused him, and although the offer was made lightly, without a second thought, it stung all the same.

In the weeks that followed, though, the mental image he had of Noiz started to change completely. Somehow, unexpectedly, the kid started to be for Aoba some sort of a protective figure, someone warm and responsible who would be able to care for him, to protect him from the outer world… and from his inner world perhaps. It certainly should be the other way around, being him the older one and Noiz just a boy of fifteen… but that's how things were.

So that second night together Aoba allowed Noiz to take control in bed, something he had never done before. He let Noiz strip him completely, between kisses, and lay him down on the bed, and contented himself with feeling all the nice things Noiz was doing to his body. For the first time in his life, he felt safe enough with someone to rely completely on them. With the control over his body, Aoba was handing Noiz his heart, as he realised that night, sighing in defeat, but deciding the joy he was feeling was well worth it.

Aoba allowed his mind to wander by this memory until his body was thrumming from pleasure and his mind went deliciously blank. Noiz was thrusting into him with all his might, enveloping his back into his chest and arms, and biting his shoulder with piercing force. Aoba gasped for air and he was suddenly starting to come. A hand reached for his dick before he could do it, and Noiz pumped him through his orgasm, milking him dry, until Aoba felt boneless and exhausted. Then Noiz let go and leaned back on his knees, grabbing Aoba's hips and ploughing into him hard and fast, groaning. In his tired afterglow, Aoba felt a sudden warmness inside of him, shocked. It was… good, in fact, the feeling of being filled with Noiz' seed, but unexpected. Wasn't he wearing a condom, then? That was also new for him.

Noiz pulled out and turned Aoba's limp body on his back to kiss him again, but before he could reach for his nape Noiz was gone, coming back to his side in a moment with a pack of baby wipes and proceeding to clean the two of them. _Oh_ , his exhausted brain provided. _Too many new things._

But as Noiz got comfortable in bed, spooning him from behind and kissing his neck lightly, Aoba could hear inside of him the blows on the wall and sobs from his other him, and grinned wickedly.


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing he felt was how dry his mouth was. Aoba tried to gulp, but it was as if his mouth was full of sand, and his tongue was made of stone or metal, something not organic at all. The second thing was almost worst, his head spinning and aching madly as soon as he opened his eyes.

But there was also a rustle of clothes, and suddenly Noiz was by his side, and Aoba felt as relief wrapped him up in a rush of fondness towards his boyfriend. Still…

"Noiz…" he called in a tiny voice.

His tongue simply didn't cooperate in the slightest. Noiz pressed a plastic bottle into his hand; god blessed him. Aoba gulped half the water in one go, and then, licking his lips, he dared at last to glance at Noiz, hesitant.

"What colour are my eyes?"

The boy hummed and stood up from the bed.

"They are hazel." Aoba stared at him, but Noiz' face was completely unreadable. The boy leaned down for a brush of lips. "And they look green in the sun light." He turned away and stepped in the bathroom. "Speaking of which, today is Sunday, and it's sunny; I was thinking we could grab some food on our way and eat picnic in the park. What do you think?"

Aoba raised his voice a bit, in order to be heard over the sound of the sink.

"Perfect, but I'd rather cook instead of having take-away again."

"Oh, would you? Are you sure? You must have a nice hangover…"

 _Not what I would call nice…_ Aoba groaned as the recollections of the previous evening started to come to the surface of his mind again. Except that they weren't exactly memories; it was more like something watched in a film. He could see himself doing all those things (he cringed again), but it didn't feel as if he was the one doing them.

A laugh made him come back from his reverie. It wasn't Noiz, he could hear him in the shower. The laugh came from somewhere inside of his mind.

 _Aaaah, last night was a blast! A truly smashing Saturday evening! I hadn't had so much fun in ages!_

Aoba gritted his teeth and stood up, with care, walking to the annexed bathroom and using the wall and the furniture for balance. Once there he looked at his reflection on the mirror, and there they were, those foreign eyes staring back at him with amusement. _I wonder if I can talk back to him…_ , he thought, but he didn't dare to try with Noiz still in the bathroom with him. He took a look at the rest of himself instead, groaning at the sight of a purple puffed area on his jaw and some cuts decorating his cheeks and eyelid. There were also some hickeys on his neck and a big red love bite on his right shoulder. It hurt when touched.

That voice chuckled again.

 _It seems we really had a great time, don't you think? He missed me so much…_

"Shut. Up", Aoba hissed.

Noiz came out of the shower and he seemed to be about to say something, glancing at his bruises, but then he obviously decided against it and walked back to their bedroom to get dressed.

"I'll make breakfast while you shower", he said. "Put some anti-inflammatory cream on that wound, at least."

Aoba sighed in annoyance and reached for their first-aid kit.

After his shower, feeling again more like himself, he started to cook their take-away lunch while munching at his toast and sipping his coffee before they went cold. Noiz, meanwhile, sat at the living room area with his laptop. A quick glance told Aoba he was updating his Rhyme betting webpage.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Noiz, that was supposed to be my task", Aoba whined.

As he was the one unemployed and Noiz was busy with school and work, Aoba was keeping the webpage updated, both collecting the money and giving the information of where Usui would appear that evening. He might not be as good as a hacker as Noiz, but once he was told how to do something with a computer, it was a child's game for him.

"Don't sweat it. Besides, you are cooking. It smells delicious, what's that?"

Aoba grinned.

"Pork and vegetables dumplings. Will that be alright?"

Noiz raised his head and looked at him, deadpan.

"I love dumplings", he said with the same calm and inexpressive tone. "Almost as much as I love you".

Aoba felt his cheeks go warm. How could Noiz deliver those sugary sentences with such a poker face, it was still a mystery to Aoba.

"Stop with the sappy comments", he grunted, turning his back on Noiz to go back to cooking, embarrassed.

Noiz let go a hearty laugh at that. _Cheeky brat…_ Aoba smiled, shaking his head. _Always plotting how to make a fool of me._

When everything was ready (the dumplings, a thermo of green tea, a pair of apples, paper napkins and all), they strolled towards the park. It was November, but the air was quiet and the sun, although not really doing much to warm them, was bright and high on the sky, making the general mood light. The park was rather packed, with lots of families making good use of their Sunday. They found lots of improvised football matches, small kids running in excitement while their parents strolled behind them with a smile, couples lying down on the lawn. The picnic area, as they half feared, was completely taken, so they took a slow walk through the park, in search of a nice piece of lawn under a tree to settle down with their food.

Their walk until they reached the park was silent. Aoba could feel Noiz' eyes constantly on him, looking him askance, but he had no idea about what his young boyfriend might be thinking. That was unnerving him, but he wanted to reach the park and sit down before having the conversation that he knew was unavoidable. Meanwhile, he was busy trying to smother the comments of his other self inside his mind. Or at least ignore them. Easier said than done.

 _I bet he is disappointed because today it's you out there with him instead of me…_

 _I was there before of you, what did you expect?_

 _Noiz is my boyfriend, you just stole him from me!_

 _But you know who his true love is, isn't it?_

 _Of course it's not the boring, predictable you…_

Aoba hissed and gritted his teeth, and Noiz shot him a concerned look and squeezed his hand, but said nothing.

Things got better once in the park, as they found lots of things to comment on, from the people they were crossing paths with to the oddly beautiful frozen state of the park. When they found at last a nice spot to sit down under a tree, near to the small lake, Aoba noticed the voice had left him alone a while ago. Good.

It was suddenly cold, with the tree covering them from the sun, and Aoba shuddered and zipped his jacket up to his Adam's apple.

"Are you cold?" Noiz asked, seemingly amused. "This is the warmest state in Germany, Aoba… What would you do in the North?"

"I would probably freeze my balls up before Christmas", Aoba retorted while he crawled to re-sit on a patch of lawn bathed by the sun.

Noiz snorted and joined Aoba on the sunny area, pulling their bag of food closer as well.

Then they looked at each other in the eye, and the silence grew awkward all of a sudden. Aoba looked away first. It seemed that Noiz was waiting for him to start giving any kind of explanation about the previous evening, and Aoba didn't know how to start. _Hell, I don't even know what to say to him_ , he thought, irked. _'Why did you fuck my other self' is not a nice thing to ask your boyfriend._ But something inside his chest burnt when he thought about that, making his eyes start to prickle with restrained tears. _I will leave that aside._

As the silence started to become too long and strained, Noiz moved closer to him and enveloped Aoba in a tight embrace, sighing. Then he sat down again by his side, but he left his arm around Aoba's shoulders and placed a soft kiss on his hair.

"Are you alright?" he asked, and Aoba nodded without thinking, as a reflex. He felt, more than heard, Noiz sighing again, half his body draped around Aoba. "What I meant is, how are you feeling? About last evening?"

Aoba shrugged, unable to find words, and his eyes focused on the green patch in front of him. Noiz gave his shoulder a squeeze and insisted again.

"Are you aware of what happened? All of it? Do you remember?"

"It's not like remembering", Aoba answered at last in a soft voice. "It was more like watching it from outside. But yeah, I think I'm aware of everything. Pretty much."

"Did he come back on his own? Or did you do something?"

Aoba frowned.

"Oh. I quit taking my pills. Two weeks ago".

Noiz' hand on his shoulder went stiff.

"Really? You didn't tell me."

"Sorry. I suppose I should have told you". Aoba bit his lip, thoughtful, and turned to look at Noiz. He was so close that the skin of their cheeks brushed. "I started to feel like an addict. I know that medicine was made especially for me, but… I don't know. I didn't want to rely on it that much."

Noiz' eyes seemed to be looking inwards, so deep in thought he was. The hand on Aoba's shoulder started to caress his neck, distracted.

"I suppose he will come back, now and then", Aoba added. "Are you okay with it?"

Noiz hummed in agreement, his mind still far away from there.

"Will you take care of me?" the young man gulped, uneasy. He didn't know how to say that plainly, and Noiz unreadable face wasn't helping him. "When I'm not here. Will you make sure my body is safe?"

Noiz seemed to come back and frowned.

"Of course. What do you mean?"

 _Oh, perhaps I was talking about the state I woke up to this morning…_ , Aoba thought with a bitter smirk. But he didn't say it aloud.

"Well… make sure I don't get killed in a fight, and those things…" Noiz just raised an eyebrow, making Aoba feel still more uncomfortable and nervous. He still didn't know how Noiz felt about his other self coming back, but the little he had watched about it made him feel incredibly sad. Was the voice right? Was he just a tolerable second option for Noiz? Suddenly, although he didn't want to say those words, he couldn't stand it anymore and he spilled them: "Noiz… Why did you have sex with him last night?"

More thoughts were attached to those words, of course, more words he didn't want to say, like: ' _you knew it wasn't me, and you still did it. Do you love him more than me?'_ Luckily, he managed to close his mouth before starting to whine those protests. Noiz' reaction, though, was not what he expected. Not that he thought an apology would come his way; Noiz sometimes apologised for saying things in a too straightforward way, without thinking before in the effect his words could have in Aoba or in other people, but he rarely, if ever, regretted anything he did. But instead of an explanation of sorts, Noiz just let go of Aoba and his frown deepened, pursing his mouth in a tight line, and Aoba watched in surprise as the boy tried to restraint his sudden anger. _Why?_ , Aoba wondered in despair, as Noiz' fists clenched and unclenched, until he finally leaned back and reached for the food bag.

"What about we leave this conversation for another moment, and eat those dumplings?" the young boy suggested with a tiny voice.

And Aoba nodded, although his stomach felt heavy as a rock.

In the end, after the uncomfortable start of their lunch, the dumplings and the tea helped Aoba to relax a bit and they settled in a calm conversation, skipping forward every time their topic went back to anything close to what they had talked about before. Aoba took Ren out of his bag and turned him on, and they played with him for a while, as if Ren was a real puppy. All in all, when they went back home their moods were lighter than in the morning. Noiz even dared to make a suggestion when they reached their apartment.

"Shouldn't we Skype Granny and tell her you are not taking your pills any more?"

Aoba hesitated at the bedroom's door, and he finally made his mind and said:

"Do you mind if we wait a little more until telling her? I'd rather see how things turn out first."

Noiz nodded.

"It's your decision, Aoba, so whatever you want to do is alright."

But Aoba could see some signs of concern clearly visible on Noiz' face. And given how poorly expressive the boy was, that was saying something. Aoba forced a smile and locked himself inside of their bathroom.

He looked again at his reflection on the mirror, frowning with determination.

"You", he said to the mirror. "We need to talk."

His reflection didn't change, but he heard, very clearly, an annoyed sigh coming from his own mind.

 _Why the fuck are you talking to the mirror? I'm not there, you know? This is not fucking Snow White and her witch of a stepmother…_

"I know. But I wasn't sure if I could talk to you or not".

The voice huffed. Aoba stopped watching the mirror and sat down on the toilet.

"Why it's me out here today, instead of you?" he asked aloud.

He still felt a little silly, talking to himself that way, and he hoped Noiz didn't think of following him to the bathroom.

 _What do I know? I wished it was me, the one outside, that's for sure. I'm glad I got to have fun yesterday, at least._

Aoba frowned deeper.

"Yeah… We have to talk about that."

The voice chuckled.

 _You are not telling me what to do or not when I'm ouside. That's my body, too._

"It's not! What the hell are you saying?!" Aoba raised his voice before he could notice and try to speak calmer. "Okay, look, you might be right, we seem to share this body. I don't know why, but it's like that. So from now on, when you take over, try to act like a normal being and skip drugs, getting plastered and being beaten."

The voice's only answer was chuckling again.

"And keep your distance from Noiz!"

 _You are the one who should keep your distance, you opportunist!,_ the voice shouted, making Aoba grimace. _He was mine before you appeared, you are the one who should leave us alone!_

"You know what? I'm not doing that. Noiz is my boyfriend, and I will fight for our relationship with teeth and claws if needed." Aoba was starting to get really angry. Before his other half had the chance of retorting something, he added: "And if you don't like it, I can always start taking my pills again, and good bye, you! Would you like that?"

The voice grunted, and it suddenly vanished from Aoba's mind.

The young man splashed some water onto his heated cheeks and watched himself on the mirror again. The one reflected was only himself, with his honey eyes and his mouth pressed tight in determination. _Everything is going to be alright_ , he thought. _I'll make sure of that._


	4. Chapter 4

Seen in retrospect, the next weeks were surely disconcerting and testing for Noiz. Sometimes his boyfriend was the cheeky and wild guy who had won his heart at first. And sometimes he was the sweet and kind boyfriend he had taken to Germany with him. They never knew beforehand who would appear the next morning when they woke up. It could be two days in a row with the same one, but sometimes a light nap made the turns change.

They decided together to tell Tae, just some evenings after it started. Aoba (the greenish hazel eyes version) sent her a coil text and then opened Skype. Noiz sat by his side, rubbing Aoba's lower back with his thumb, reassuring him with his warmth. Tae's face appeared on the screen a minute later.

"Granny! Good evening!" Aoba grinned at her, sincerely happy to see her.

"It's morning here. But it's good to see you anyway. How are you two doing?"

The face on the screen was wrinkled and stern, her pink hair in a new hairdo, as weird as the previous one.

"Fine, we are fine", Aoba assured.

Noiz put a hand on top of Aoba's one and came closer to the camera.

"Good morning, granny. In fact, we wanted to tell you about something."

"Is something wrong?" Tae's features didn't express concern, but her voice trembled a bit. "Is this about your health, Aoba?"

"No, no, I'm alright…"

Noiz sighed and cut him.

"He is not taking his pills any more."

Tae raised her eyebrows, and Aoba would swear she was more curious than worried.

"Oh. That wasn't very clever from you, Aoba… How are your headaches, then?"

"They are… bad. But I'm taking regular painkillers, and only when I can't stand it. The pills weren't working much in the end, and I started to feel like if my body had just grown used to them, and I would need stronger and stronger drugs every time… so I thought it was better to quit taking any unnecessary drug."

Tae sighed and closed her eyes, clearly annoyed.

"Aoba, they weren't unnecessary… You know their main function was not helping with your headaches, right?"

Aoba hesitated and shared a pointed look with Noiz.

"In fact… I don't know exactly what they are meant to do, granny. The only thing I know is that you started prescribing them to me when I lose my memory… But that's all. I don't get why I should keep on taking them."

Tae grunted.

"You don't trust me, I see…"

"It's not that…"

"Not much, in fact", Noiz said at the same time.

Noiz and Aoba shared another look, a disconcerted one from Aoba and a reassuring one from Noiz. Without needing even a nod, Aoba agreed to let Noiz lead the conversation.

"Tae-san, the old personality of Aoba is coming back sometimes. They switch almost daily." The old woman paled. "We wanted to ask you about it, how does it work and what do those pills exactly do. You told me they blocked the access to the temporal lobe, but Aoba is not remembering, his personality seems to be just split in two. Is that a side effect of the pills?"

Noiz' hand squeezed Aoba's, and the young man fought to keep calm. Tae looked exhaust all of a sudden.

"I…I really don't know", she stuttered. "I'll have to research about it".

"Will you tell us as soon as you find out something?" Noiz asked.

The old woman nodded.

They said their goodbyes, and the conversation ended. Aoba sighed and rested his forehead on Noiz' shoulder.

"You have been mulling over this, right?" Aoba asked softly.

"Of course I have." Noiz pulled him to his chest and hugged him, kissing his hair. "You are the most important thing to me, Aoba."

"What else do you think about all this mess?"

Noiz remained silent for a moment, and then he answered.

"I have a lot of ideas, but I'm sure most of them are wrong. I'd rather talk about this with you when your granny tells us something else."

Aoba wasn't very satisfied with the answer. Why wasn't Noiz sharing his thoughts with him? Especially since they concerned him. But he didn't voice this, because he was afraid to break the tense balance they had at that very moment. The three of them.

* * *

"Noiiiiiiz… Pleaaaaase… It's Friday night, let's go out! You are sixteen, for fuck's sake! You should be having fun instead of acting like a dull grown up."

Noiz glared at him, looking at him askance from under his long eyelashes, and turned again to his laptop.

"You know I can't. Tomorrow I work at my father's company, and I have to get up early, like everyday. Besides, I can't afford to go to work with a hangover. We will go out tomorrow evening, if you want."

Aoba let go a frustrated growl.

"But I don't know if I will be here tomorrow or not! That's unfair."

Noiz huffed.

"Go out on your own. I can't help it if you don't like it, things are like they are."

"Perhaps I will take your word and do it."

"I say, do it, go out and have fun."

Aoba studied his young boyfriend's face. Was it a trap?

"Seriously? You don't mind?"

"Why would I? You went out on your own a lot when we where together in Midorijima."

"But that was different, I went out to play Rhyme. Besides, I knew everybody and everybody knew me."

"I also went out to play Rhyme without you afterwards." Aoba opened his mouth to complain. 'A _fterwards'_ meant when he wasn't there anymore, and Noiz was with the other Aoba, but Noiz kept on talking and cut him. "So it's okay, we are not the kind of couple that goes together everywhere like if they were joined by their hip. I trust you, go and have fun. Just… remember to take a taxi to come back, and try to behave… Well, at least a bit."

Aoba finally smiled to him and leaned in for a kiss.

"I'll come back soon, alright? Stay awake for me."

Noiz chuckled.

"I'll try, but I can't swear."

Aoba sauntered to their bedroom, humming a song and smiling to himself. He took fresh clothes from the closet and started changing into them, but when he was halfway done he noticed Ren's gaze on him. And his usually adorable puppy face looked almost grumpy and stern.

"What is it, Ren?" he asked.

Ren let go a soft growl and said:

"You should leave Aoba alone. Can't you see you are not wanted here any more?"

Aoba opened his mouth, startled. That was… unexpected. And cruel.

"But _I am_ Aoba. And what the hell, Ren, it's not fair that you take sides in this… Besides, it was _me_ who rescued you from the dump and repaired you! Don't you remember?" The robot dog answered with a low grunt and avoided his eyes. "You have only been with this other Aoba for some months now, less than a year, you fucking traitor!" As Aoba kept talking, he started to feel his chest aching with a burn of bitter self-pity. "This is not fair at all. Can't you remember how the two of us used to play Rhyme? We had great fun together!"

"I barely remember that", the robot said softly, still refusing to look at him. "But you are not my Aoba".

And with that he walked off the bedroom. Aoba couldn't believe his ears, honestly. Ren was acting oddly since a month ago, but that? Wasn't that too much?

"Ungrateful bastard…", he muttered, trying to calm himself from the figurative punch in the stomach of Ren's words.

That evening wasn't as fun as the last night out he had. At first he stepped in an arcade; given that there was no Rhyme in Germany, videogames were the closest option. Nothing comparable, but still nice.

When the arcade closed, he followed a group of people to a bar, and then to another, until he felt comfortably numb, his mind clouded by alcohol. Sadly, he didn't succeed in finding drugs, and the two times he thought a guy was about to provide, it turned out he had been flirting a tad too much and had to push them away, annoyed. He ended at a club, sitting at the bar counter with a beer and messaging Noiz on his coil, surrounded by people sweating and dancing. Aoba started to send Noiz innuendos, amused, until the German boy's answer was:

' _If you are not having fun, why are you still there? I'm going to bed in one hour exactly."_

Aoba blinked and read the message three times. Then he rushed to the exit so fast that he almost forgot his jacket.

* * *

He watched Noiz finish his dessert with his cheek on his hand, smiling. He had finished his own piece of cake long ago; he still didn't eat as much as Noiz. The boy watched him back with a frown that Aoba interpreted as a puzzled look. As soon as he finished, Aoba took his plate and placed it inside the dishwasher.

"Right! I… I have a surprise for you!" he exclaimed with a nervous grin, but managing to barely stutter.

Noiz' eyebrows shot up.

"More food? Aoba, I swear I can't take a bite more… We have leftovers in our fridge for a whole week…"

"Nonono… Not food, I swear!" Aoba giggled, starting to sweat from the stress. "Just go to the bedroom, take your clothes off and wait for me."

Noiz' face lit up and smirked.

"Ooooh, that kind of surprise? Have you bought a toy, hmmm? Oil massage? What is it?"

"Don't be impatient… You'll just have to wait for me a little bit…"

And he pushed Noiz, who was trying to grab his waist and kiss his neck, towards the bedroom. He slipped from his hands and locked himself inside their bathroom, sighing.

"Alright!" he said aloud. "Let's do this!"

He took the box he had placed on top of the bathroom cabinet and lowered it, settling it down on top of the toilet cistern. He drew out the contents with care, caressing the fabric, and proceeded to put the garments on. He struggled to tie the laces, using the mirror for help, and only when he was done he dared to watch at his reflection fully.

He was wearing a satin corset, blue, of course, as that was his colour. It started just below his nipples and ended exactly at his hips, laced in the front with black velvet ribbons and holding his black tights more or less in place with another set of black ribbons. All in all, now that he had at last dared to wear the damned thing, he thought the lack of breasts made it look strange and not that sexy (but the website where he bought it from said the item was made for males), and the tights were pulling the whole frigging corset down. He pulled it up again, to its right place, annoyed. That thing was highly uncomfortable, even without the matching high heels that he in the end didn't buy, and he looked like an idiot. _I look ridiculous_ , he thought, frowning. _What if Noiz laughs at me when he sees?_

A chuckle took him out of his reverie.

 _That's your attempt at counterattack? Not bad. Nice ass, by the way. I would have gone for black leather, though._

 _Fantastic_ , Aoba thought, sighing, _exactly what I need right now._

"That's because you have no taste. No need to be _that_ slutty, Noiz will love this."

 _Tsch. Perhaps. I didn't need any of that last night, were you watching, hmmm?_

Sadly for Aoba, he was. He frowned again and focused on the mirror to adjust his hair, avoiding looking at his eyes, which had a definite golden glow that shouldn't be there.

 _Five times in a row! Bless Noiz and his sixteen years old stamina!_ , the voice laughed. _I wonder if he still has got something left for you today. Don't get mad at him if he doesn't!_

"Would you shut up!" Aoba hissed.

He didn't want to raise his voice; Noiz was at the other side of the door, and he didn't want him to hear him talking to his other self.

He opened the bathroom's door and made a sudden and not-at-all-like-planned entrance. Noiz had taken all his clothes off, as Aoba had asked, and was sitting on the bed, completely naked, his back resting against the headboard, and was playing with his coil until he heard Aoba and his eyes shot up to look at him. Aoba felt his eyes raking up and down his body and his face went warm at once. If he wanted to surprise Noiz, he had succeeded at two hundred per cent, because the boy was staring at him open-mouthed and with his small pale brows so high that they almost touched his hairline. Despite of that, Aoba hadn't felt so embarrassed in his whole life.

Noiz purred his name and crawled on his hands and knees until the feet of the bed, beckoning Aoba to come closer with a gesture. Hesitant, he stepped onwards until he was at Noiz' reach. He pulled the top of the corset again, uncomfortable, knowing he was surely as red as a ladybug. He had planned to make a sexy entrance, walking slowly but confident, smiling boldly to Noiz, but of course that seemed to be impossible for him, and instead he had to feel awkward and embarrassed instead of sexy. _Ah, man, this will be a disaster!_ , he thought.

Oblivious to his boyfriend's concerns, Noiz kept studying his appearance appreciatively. He stroke Aoba's sides, very lightly, up and down, and then he lowered his hands to reach for his thighs, the part of them that wasn't covered in black translucent fabric, prompting a shudder in Aoba. Noiz licked his lips and Aoba marvelled at how his lovely green eyes shone. It seemed he liked it, didn't he?

"So this is my surprise, eh?" Noiz asked, smirking. "So unexpected".

Relieved, Aoba placed his hands on Noiz' shoulders and nape and leaned down for a kiss, humming. Noiz deepened it at once, sucking at his tongue with fervour and then putting his tongue piercing as deep in Aoba's mouth as it could reach. Soon he withdrew and started to pepper kisses on Aoba's shoulders, arms and chest, sucking and biting lightly, his hands roaming over the rest of his body, and suddenly freezing when they were aiming for his ass and found something in the way.

"What?!"

Aoba chuckled, feeling more confident now, and turned to show Noiz what he had touched blindly. The corset had a bunny tail attached to the backside, and Aoba shook his hips to display the effect of the bunny tail wiggling on top of his bum. One look back to Noiz told him he had hit the target: the boy was speechless, eyes wide in surprise… and in lust, with his pupils dilated and dark. Aoba took one of Noiz' hands and placed it on the tail, smiling. Noiz stroked the fluffy material, and almost immediately he raised also his other hand to fondle one of Aoba's cheek butts.

"I…I thought you would like it… Given that you like bunnies so much…"

Noiz looked surprised, his eyes still focused on the bum in front of him.

"I do?"

Aoba laughed heartily.

"Yes, you do! So when I saw this corset, I thought you might like it."

Noiz nodded with enthusiasm and pulled him for a kiss, smiling.

"Now… can you sit like you were when I came in, please?"

The boy raised an eyebrow at this, but he nodded again and complied.

"More surprises?"

Blushing, Aoba kneeled on the bed and settled himself facing the feet of the bed, on his hands and knees, offering Noiz a great and close up view of his ass with the bunny tail. That was the most embarrassing part of the whole plan. He felt Noiz' hands caressing his ankles and calves and tried to calm down.

"This is quite the sight…" Noiz whispered. "Can I touch you now?"

"No… Not yet, sorry. Pass me the lube?"

Noiz opened the first drawer and took out the tube for him. Aoba braced himself on one forearm (unconsciously making his ass protrude still more) and covered his right fingers in lube. When he reached back to insert his middle finger inside of his tight hole, Noiz gasped.

 _Oooooh, who's the slut now? My, my…_

Aoba cursed, and he hoped Noiz thought it was due to the excitement. _Not now_ , he thought, but he couldn't answer the voice, not then. He needed all his concentration right then, he had been planning that for a week, and couldn't afford to ruin it. He closed his eyes and focused on the stretch of his insides with every push of his finger, in the slippery sound of the lube against his skin and in Noiz laboured breath behind him. He was so tense that he almost had a slight panic attack when he felt Noiz' hands creeping up his thighs and suddenly gripping his cheeks and spreading them, kneading the soft flesh until Aoba moaned and his finger paused. And then there was another finger alongside his, moving in and out his body harshly, and Aoba's breath hitched and tried to keep up with his own finger. He noticed he was sweating by then, although his mouth was dry, and his canal felt stretched and viscous, but also itching for more.

Behind him, Noiz leaned down in his knees and started to lick his ass crack, and Aoba couldn't help but moan again. His dick was growing hard by the moment, bobbing up and down with the movements of his hips on their fingers. He knew what came next, knowing Noiz as he did, but he still had goose bumps when he felt his tongue toying with the outer rim of his hole, going around their joined fingers, and then crooking his finger and going straight for Aoba's prostate. The young man groaned onto the duvet, hiding his red face on the bed, and fought to keep moving his middle finger inside of him. His hips bucked on their own by now, pressing on the source of his pleasure, that tongue deep inside by then, making him feel wet and filthy and incredibly turned on, and he knew he had to take the reigns right then, or the next he would feel would be Noiz' hands grabbing his waist and flipping him on his back, taking control. And that wasn't what Aoba had planned for that evening, oh, no, thank you very much.

It took all of his willpower to sit up on his calves and push Noiz away.

"Noiz…" Speaking was difficult with how laboured his breath was. "Can you lie down for me?"

Another puzzled look from Noiz, but Aoba knew he would do as told. The boy leaned back in a horizontal position, braced on his forearms and eyes focused on Aoba. Then the young man kneeled on top of Noiz' lap, straddling him facing again the feet of the bed instead of the headboard, and lowered his body while he guided the head of Noiz' cock inside of his eager hole. He soon felt the familiar stretch, and then, as he sat down completely, slow but firm, that overwhelming feeling of being filled, a little intrusive until he rocked his hips and a rush of pleasure and adrenaline started to run through his nerves. The angle made it feel odd, but not worse, like with an additional pressure in his lower half, but at the same time more intense. The worst was, obviously, knowing that he was displaying himself like that. He knew Noiz would be watching the cute fluff tail jumping up and down his ass, just inches on top of the point where his bodies joined, and also his ass spreading with every rotation of his hips. He was offering him quite the show, and Aoba couldn't help to feel really embarrassed. _But I'll show that moron he is not the only one who can ride a dick_ , he thought, determined. He focused on his pleasure again, and tried to keep a regular rhythm, bucking his hips, rocking them up and down and then in circles, leaning onwards to push his ass some inches further into Noiz' lap, changing the angle, and it felt still better, deeper, more intense, slightly painful too, but who cared about it right then, when his body was threatening to explode from pleasure. He kept it slow, because he didn't want to finish too soon, but after five minutes or so he started to be a little impatient and started to raise his hips and lower them on Noiz' cock, just a bit faster and rougher than before, until he was panting and started to find it difficult to get air into his lungs.

Noiz had tried not to move much, just a slight buck of his own hips meeting Aoba's at his rhythm, but the moment arrived when he couldn't wait any more and then he suddenly sat up and grabbed Aoba's hips tightly, and started to thrust into him with fast and powerful shoves. Aoba screamed and melted in his arms, leaving to him the rest. His legs felt rather like jelly at that point, and Noiz unrelenting pace was too hard for him to follow anyway. Soon Noiz groaned loudly and encircled Aoba's waist with both his arms. The intensity of his pleasure was slightly too overwhelming, with Noiz grunting on his ear, and his chest rubbing against Aoba's back, slippery with their mixed sweat, and he couldn't be gladder when one of Noiz' hands moved to his leaking dick and began to pump it. He was really too gone to do it himself, but his body was taut and crying out for release. Noiz gasped and his whole body went stiff, and Aoba rocked his hips again while his own orgasm hit him. Hard. Long. He felt another thrust into him, direct to his prostate, and he had to close his eyes and focus on keeping his body steady and not to fall down onto the bed too soon. He couldn't remember when was the last time he had come for so long; the moment seemed endless, as if the time had stopped for them.

But it finished at last, and Aoba allowed himself to drop on his side, with Noiz following, still inside of him, tightly draped around of his body. Aoba felt him like a cape, covering his back, his arms and half of his legs, and it was the safer he had felt in his whole life. They rested for some minutes like that, trying to get their breaths back. Noiz' cock eventually turned limp and slipped from Aoba with a trickle of come alongside it. Usually, it was Noiz who sat up and clean them, and although Aoba loved that, that intimate moment of aftercare, he wished Noiz would fell asleep exactly how they were lying right then, so they didn't have to move at all. But Noiz leaned back a little, ungluing his chest from Aoba's back, and sighed, tired.

"That was quite a surprise, Aoba."

"Have you enjoyed it?"

"You don't need to ask that, do you?" Noiz laughed. He sat up on the bed, making Aoba feel cold all of a sudden. He sat up, too, and wondered if he should go to clean himself and then get into the bedcovers. "But it was so unlike you… What prompted it, may I know?"

Noiz wore a slight frown, and Aoba guessed he was still as confused as when he had come out the bathroom with his silly fancy-dress.

"Well, I wanted to show you that I'm not as vanilla as that dumbass says…"

Noiz' frown turned deeper, and he squinted.

"What 'dumbass' are you talking about?"

Embarrassed, Aoba avoided his eyes, studying the bedcover instead.

"You know… Him. He's being teasing me with that for a while, and it was starting to irk me… With all of that crap with him being better and kinkier in bed and that…"

Noiz didn't add any comment, so Aoba finally raised his head to look at him again. His boyfriend was glaring at him with unhidden rage.

"No", the boy said after a moment. "Don't. You are not making me go through that, I refuse." He didn't raise his voice, but he almost spat the words, and Aoba's blood started to beat in his ears. Noiz stood up from the bed, talking almost to himself. "I went through losing you once, and it was the worst I have never felt in my life, Aoba. It was really difficult to come to terms with… us, afterwards, but I'm glad I did. You mean the world to me, you know that. But now", he turned to face Aoba again, and his face was a mask of coldness, "we are back in my hometown, and I have to face my father everyday, and I have to try to be a model student, although I've been the last two school years in Japan and a lot of things don't make sense for me, and I have to pretend, from the moment I go through that door every morning, until the moment I come back in the evening, all the fucking day I have to pretend that I am someone that I am really not, in front of my parents, in front of my teachers, in front of my schoolmates, in front of my co-workers. And it's fucking killing me, and the only thing I have, Aoba, the only moments I can be myself and let my head rest, is when I'm at home with you. So don't make me go through this, don't make me feel guilty when I make love with you. Because that's what it is for me, making love. Don't turn it into a stupid competition between your two halves; you don't need to cook for me like if you were training for a damn cooking contest or do things in bed that you don't feel like doing. I have just one boyfriend: one that sometimes acts sweet and shy but sometimes feels more adventurous. So don't make me feel as if I was dating two persons, because I can't cope with that, sorry."

He sat again on the bed, clenching his fists, and Aoba couldn't stand it any more and went to lock himself in the bathroom. Once there, he looked into the air and said aloud:

"Are you there? I think we should talk."

 _Yes. I'm afraid so._


	5. Chapter 5

Aoba sat on top of the toilet lid and started rolling his black tights down with trembling hands.

 _We have fucked it up, mate_ , the voice inside his head said, clearly annoyed. _After all the crap I have done, and I can tell you it's been quite a lot, this is the first time I really think Noiz is going to dump us for real._

Aoba sucked air, trying to keep his shuddering under control.

"Are you suggesting it's my fault?" he asked, angry. "Don't you dare! You are the one who started it!"

 _And you were the one who turned it into a competition!_ , the voice lashed out.

Aoba threw the tights to the other side of the bedroom, enraged, but breathed deeply to calm down. He ran a hand through his long locks, the soft pain that this gesture always prompted helping him to ground himself. He raised his face again and frowned with determination.

"Right! Never mind who started this, it needs to end! We must cooperate."

 _The other option is coming back alone to Midorojima, so… I guess yes, we should fix this mess between the two of us_.

Aoba shuddered again at the thought of coming back to his island, having lost Noiz. Defeated. _That won't happen_ , he thought, fisting his hands.

 _So… Are we calling a truce?_

"You can say so, yes", Aoba answered, sighing tiredly.

He took the corset off and had a quick shower, while his other self kept chitchatting endlessly. When he at last dared to go back to his bedroom, Noiz was seating inside their bed, already in his pyjamas, reading something on his coil. He looked askance at his boyfriend, but he didn't say anything. Aoba cleared his throat and went to sit on the feet of the bed.

"Alright…", he started, trying to sound more confident than he was actually feeling. "My other half and I have talked about it and we have decided to stop competing. From now on, we will collaborate with each other and try to make your life easier… Our life, I meant."

And he offered the boy a tense smile, the best one he could show in those circumstances. Noiz opened his mouth, puzzled, and Aoba wondered if it would be safe to go closer to him or if the German boy would push him away.

"Hold on…" Noiz gulped and a deep crease formed in his brow. "You are telling me that you can actually talk with your other personality? And that he talks back?" Aoba nodded. "I thought… I don't know… I didn't know it worked like that. So it's really like being two different people, then." After a short hesitation, Aoba nodded again. He realised then how difficult it should be for another person to understand what was happening. Hell, it was difficult even for him, and Noiz wasn't in his head! "Is he here, then, your other self? Can he hear us?"

Aoba heard a distinct sigh inside his head.

 _Say 'hi' for me_ , the voice said.

"He says 'hi'", Aoba reported with a tiny voice.

Noiz rubbed his frown with a tired gesture and then he opened his arms and beckoned Aoba to come closer. He hugged him tightly and sighed on his ear.

"I'm sorry for snapping like that, Aoba. Really sorry. You have done nothing wrong."

Aoba breathed him softly, inhaling the familiar and comforting scent of Noiz' hair and clothes.

"Neither do you", he whispered. "You must think I'm completely nuts, hmm?"

Noiz chuckled against his neck, nuzzling it.

"I've been aware of that since the day I met you, a bit late to hide it now", the boy retorted. Aoba gave him a light smack on the nape, but Noiz just tightened the embrace and added, softly: "I love you, Aoba, no matter how you act; I love both sides of you, equally. Even if it's not right, let me pretend that you are only one."

"If that's what you need to cope with… this, of course. No more fighting, no more arguing for you. Every part of me loves you, Noiz."

And he held the boy's wide shoulders, gripping him fiery, closing his eyes and allowing all his love to seep into his embrace. Inside of his head there was only silence, but he could feel his other self approving and hugging Noiz with him.

* * *

 _This is rubbish, Aoba! We need to do much better than this!_

Aoba sighed and, sadly, couldn't agree more with his other half. Now that they were working together, they were finally able to focus on what was important for them instead of wasting their time in petty arguments, but it was frustrating all the same. His (their) German language book and notebook sat on the table in front of him.

 _We will never find a job with this crappy level of German, and we definitely need to work!_

"I know! Don't you think I'm aware? I've been out here for more months than you, I know how it is!"

 _And still you have advanced so little!_

"Perhaps if you had taken the trouble to attend school a bit more, we wouldn't be so lost right now!"

 _Ah, so now it's my fault that you are such a useless dumb!_

Aoba felt his other self sulking in silence, his presence as visible for him as if he was sitting down on the couch hugging his knees and staring stubbornly at the floor.

"Look, at least try not to skip any German lessons when you are out here, okay?"

 _It was just the once_ , the voice muttered softly, still annoyed. _I've never been good with books, I can't help it. I get nervous when I don't understand something, and the rest of the classroom thinks I am stupid and weird._

"Of course not!", Aoba exclaimed. "They stare at us because we are the only Japanese students in the school. But some of them are really nice. Communicating is difficult, of course, because none of us can speak German yet, but we must try. Go have a coffee with Maria or Luca after a lesson and practise with them; they are nice, I assure you."

 _But they will notice I'm not you_.

Aoba sighed.

"Just try to be polite. Don't insult them, talk about simple things, what things you like, where you go when you go out, talk about Midorijima…"

The other scoffed.

 _I think I'll leave the socializing for you_ , the voice said.

"…Or you can simply keep sulking, if you want. But at least go to class and take notes! I'll do the homework."

 _Okay, don't be so pissy! It's not like I have anything better to do, anyway._

Aoba threw a sad glance around him, at his empty flat, and grimaced. His other self was right, everything was better than sitting all day on his own among those four walls. He thought about taking Ren for a stroll, to get some fresh air, when the voice talked again, cutting his thoughts.

 _Hey… I was wondering… Were you here, inside, I mean, during all the years I was out there?_ Aoba froze and started thinking hard, trying to remember. _During all the Rhyme and middle school years, and then the shitty jobs and Noiz?_

 _Noiz_. He did remember meeting Noiz. The coffee shop. And Rhyme? No, that part was blurry. He bit his thumb's nail, thinking.

"I think so. But I can barely remember. I have flashes, but not full memories."

 _What do you remember?_

"Ren. I remember finding Ren, working for weeks on him until we succeed". He smiled at the memory, and he felt the other Aoba smiling as well. "And meeting Noiz at the coffee shop. And… flashes, as I said. Faces. Granny crying…" He sat up all of a sudden, startled. "I didn't remember before! I couldn't remember Noiz when I woke up at the hospital, after the accident! Perhaps it is true that quitting the pills means we can recover all our memories!"

The other Aoba spoke with hesitance after a short silence.

 _Can you remember the accident?_

Aoba frowned and tried to squeeze his brain. Nothing. Just a rather potent headache starting to take shape.

"No, I can't. You neither, can you?"

He felt his other self shaking his head, as clearly as if he could see him in front of him.

 _What can you remember? From before, I mean. Were you locked inside our bedroom and watching me outside like if you were having a dream?_

Aoba linked his hands, puzzled.

"Our bedroom? What do you mean?"

 _You are not in our bedroom in granny's house when you are not out there?_

"No… I'm in the beach."

 _The beach? What beach?_ The voice sounded as confused as Aoba felt right then.

"The beach where our father found us. It's… the first memory I have. It's not the same for you, then?"

 _No. I'm inside our bedroom. But I can't go out, I'm trapped inside. At least I have our music and our magazines and mangas, though… What the fuck do you do all day in that stupid beach?_

"Well… I go for a stroll… I swim… I just sit and watch the waves, or play with them. Don't call it stupid, I love that place. It's a very precious memory for me, anyway."

The voice chuckled without a tad of humour.

 _Precious? Our father finding us, telling us a lot of senseless crap, making us think we were normal and deserved love, just for afterwards abandoning us when he got tired of playing families? That's a precious memory for you?_

All the saliva inside of Aoba's mouth seemed to turn bitter. His eyes prickled and he clenched his hands and tried to calm down.

 _Oh, for fuck's sake!,_ the voice added, annoyed _. Don't start crying now! I think we cried enough over that in the past, no need to dehydrate further!_

He was right, of course, but still Aoba refused to think of his parents in those terms. It still hurt too much. Instead, he clung to the idea he had chosen to believe: his parents were free spirits and couldn't be weighed down taking care of a child. They have loved him, and they have provided someone who would always care for him: granny. That was more than okay, some people didn't even have that.

The other Aoba kept on grumbling something inaudible, fuming, and Aoba tried to decide again if it would be better to go out with Ren for a while, or if he should work with his German at least half an hour more. Ren took the decision from his hands, tapping his knee with his little black paw. Aoba glanced down at him and smiled at those lovely big eyes.

"Aoba", the deep voice of Ren said, "please stop tormenting yourself with sad memories. Don't talk with that being, I beg you."

 _What the hell, Ren!_ , the voice shouted, upset.

"Ssssh, calm down… Ren, it's okay, don't worry. I need to talk with him."

 _I was the one who repaired you, you fucking bastard!_

"I said calm down! Ren can't hear you!" Then a stupid idea crossed his mind, and addressed the dog again. "Because you can't hear him, right?"

The robot dog seemed reluctant to answer. At last he muttered:

"No, but I can feel his presence inside of you. He should leave you alone, Aoba. He's just trouble, and won't bring anything good to you."

Aoba was rendered speechless. The two of them, in fact. _Air, that's it_ , he thought with what seemed his last working neuron, _fresh air is what we all need right now_. And he closed the language book with a smack.

* * *

Some weeks later, he opened his eyes in the darkness of his bedroom and heard soft voices coming from the sitting room. His head was hazy with sleep, but he tried to at least make out his surroundings. He was in his bed, in his bedroom, yes… and after a moment his sluggish mind reminded him that he had gone to bed a little while ago, and that Noiz had said he would stay until he finished some school task, and then he would join him in bed. So far, so good. He should just go back to sleep. But despite the grogginess there was something nudging him to wake up. Aoba made a great effort to open his eyes and to shake the sleep from his five senses, to make them operative again. And then he noticed, with a start, that he could recognise the other voice in the sitting room. Granny. She surely was talking with Noiz via Skype. But why? So late? Without him? It didn't make sense.

Aoba forced himself to focus on their words.

"…I still can't understand why you didn't tell us all of this before".

That was Noiz' voice, and despite being as calm and monotonous as ever, Aoba could feel the edge of annoyance in it.

"I think the reason is quite clear, Noiz… Aoba wasn't stable enough to cope with the truth; he has never been, in fact. And you are too young for such a burden."

Aoba frowned at his granny's words. What was she talking about?

"Never mind my age!" Noiz exclaimed. "I'm here for Aoba for the long run; I thought you would have understood it by now. What else do I have to do to gain your trust?"

"I know, I know… And that's why I'm talking to you right now, isn't it? But last year I couldn't be sure; I honestly didn't think you would be able to cope."

"Did you think I would get scared and abandon Aoba? That's rubbish!"

"I've already apologised, boy, don't push it. I still don't like the fact that you practically kidnapped my grandson and took him to the other side of the world."

Noiz grumbled something barely audible that Aoba couldn't quite catch. He approached the door and breathed deeply with his hand on the knob.

"You really must think I am unstable and weak if you two only dare to talk about me behind my back."

Noiz froze at the spot and turned, very slowly, to look at Aoba, who was standing at the bedroom door with a stern face. Tae pressed her lips together in the laptop screen.

"Aoba…" Noiz started, clearly embarrassed. He bit his lower lip and seemed to find it difficult to lock his eyes with Aoba. "We didn't want to bother you right now. It's not that we think you are weak or fragile, I swear. I know you can take whatever we throw at you but… you have gone through a lot this last year… It seemed unfair to add more."

Aoba crossed his arms and glared at him. He was fully awake now, and more than a bit pissed at them. In the screen, Tae sighed loudly.

"Okay, Aoba… Although I agree with Noiz, it's also unfair to keep you in the dark forever. I've been waiting for some years to tell you something. You weren't acting like a grown up, so I kept postponing the talk… but I guess the moment has arrived." Noiz and she shared a pointed look, and Aoba would have sworn that Noiz looked sad at her words. "Is your other self listening to us?"

Aoba hesitated. He couldn't sense him. He opted by calling him aloud, even though he felt rather stupid doing so.

"Hey! …Aoba? Are you there?"

At first he couldn't hear any words, but he started to feel a presence. Ren startled him brushing against his calve with his soft fur, joining them in the sitting room as well.

"He is there, I can sense him", Ren said.

 _Yes, I am here_ , the voice in his head said. _What is this? A night meeting? You people are insomniac or what?_

"I'm sorry to awake you", Aoba said with a smirk, "but granny wants to tell us something."

Noiz and Tae kept looking from Ren to Aoba with uncertainty on their faces, and Aoba almost grinned at the absurdity of the situation, especially seen from outside: He was talking aloud with himself, and his dog was the only one aware of his "invisible friend". Bizarre indeed.

"Sit down, Aoba", Tae asked with a shaky voice.

Noiz reached for his hand and Aoba sat by his side on a chair, in front of their sitting room table with the laptop. What she explained right then made little sense to Aoba, and had it been any other people talking to him instead of Noiz and his grandmother, he would certainly had thought he was being pranked. But Noiz kept squeezing his hand and watching him with concerned eyes, and Tae wasn't one for pranks of any kind. So her words must have been the truth.

She told him that she knew for a fact that whoever brought him to the orphanage where he lived until he was six wasn't his biological mother or his biological father, since he was born in the Toue Inc. labs, as a test subject. He was a designed baby, part of a bigger plan to develop certain physical abilities. She kept rambling on about the general plan Toue was devising for Midorijima but, apart from the main idea that said plan wasn't nice at all, Aoba's brain locked itself around finding out the truth about his biological parents, and couldn't pay much attention to or understand the rest.

 _We don't have… biological parents?_ , his other self asked, his disbelief only mirroring the one of the Aoba in the outer world. _They didn't dump us in that church in the beach… They simply never existed…_ Aoba nodded, feeling something inside his chest cracking and crumbling. He kept quiet, though, barely noticing Tae's words any more, or the way Noiz' frown deepened and how he finally came closer and enveloped him in a tight embrace, " _Aoba are you ok_ " lost somewhere in the way from Noiz' lips to Aoba's ears. He could feel his other self roaring, unable to keep a brave face… But he didn't need to, since there was nobody there to pretend for. _So we are really more of a monster than we thought! What the hell, Aoba! We are not… fucking human. Just a walking test tube, ha! How's that?!_

Aoba put his hands on his ears, as if that gesture could stop those words, and shut his eyes tight.

"Granny, give it a rest…" Noiz' words seemed to come from afar, from another world. "Hey. Aoba. Open your eyes". He did so, and faced a very worried looking Noiz, who was examining his features just inches away, his arms holding Aoba's frame protectively. "It's alright. Granny and I are here for you. Everything is going to be alright." Aoba nodded, and indeed he started to feel relief sipping from the caring arms of his boyfriend into his body. Perhaps he was a monster, but at least he wasn't alone. Now that he looked calmer, Noiz addressed Tae again. The woman looked pained, and Aoba wished she was also in the same room as him, so he could run towards her and hide his face on her chest, as he used to do when he was a kid. "Granny… Tell Aoba about the power."

"W-What?" Aoba asked, confused.

He moved away from Noiz again and focused on his grandmother. She looked at him with sadness, but after a bit of reluctance she started to speak again.

"Aoba… The goal of Toue's experiments, as I have already explained, is finding a tool for mass control. As I have found out through the years, observing you, you were a partial success. Your voice has some special characteristics."

"My voice? What are you talking about?"

He felt Noiz tensing by his side.

"You have a power in your voice, which can be activated in certain circumstances. It allows you to go inside the conscience of another person and go through their emotions. It gives you a great deal of control over people, provided you learn how to use it properly. But until now, it seems you have only made use of it during Rhyme."

Aoba turned to look at Noiz. He still couldn't remember anything about Rhyme, just the fact of having played it for some years. Noiz' face was an unreadable mask.

 _It might be true,_ the voice inside himself said, hesitant _. I felt it_.

"You did?" Aoba asked aloud. "And how does it work?"

He felt the other Aoba shaking his head and sighing.

 _I don't know… The power always came when I was feeling more reckless… It was an overwhelming urge to destroy my opponent, to enter their mind and making them fall apart in pieces… I usually could stop just after a bit of damage, the right amount to make me win the match, but sometimes I simply couldn't stop. I didn't want to stop, and just went on and on…_

Aoba felt goose bumps creeping up his spine.

"That's… dangerous", he muttered.

"Aoba", Noiz asked, "what does he say? How does it work?"

"I… I will tell you later… Or he can do it, when he's out. But no demonstrations."

 _Of course not! Why do you think I never wanted to fight him in Rhyme?_

"Oh. He says that's why he never wanted to fight you in Rhyme, Noiz."

The boy nodded.

"That makes sense. I understand some things better now."

Aoba tilted his head.

"Oh?"

"The night you lost your memory", Noiz clarified. In the laptop screen, Tae nodded, pursing her lips. "According to various witnesses, it seems you took too many drugs and lost control during Rhyme… You put your opponent in a coma, and then his gang attacked you in revenge."

Aoba closed his eyes tight, pained. _My other self is a bastard_ , he thought. At least said guy had the decency to not saying a word right then. One retort from him, and Aoba would be tempted to start taking Tae's pills again without a second thought. Noiz squeezed his hand to call for his attention before speaking again.

"But the drugs and the beating weren't the cause of your memory loss. There was something else." He turned to look at Tae in the screen. "Granny… please tell us what do you know about that."

The old woman shook his head, her eyes sad and more wrinkled than usual.

"My friend in the hospital and I studied the contents of the drugs in Aoba's blood for weeks… He used to work in Toue Inc. with me, in the pharmaceutical lab as well. But once we isolated the normal contents of the recreational drugs Aoba could have taken, the rest was a mystery. It seems he was given an experimental compound, one very strong and specifically designed to tamper with the temporal lobe and other parts of the brain."

"Who would give me something like that and why?" Aoba exclaimed. Nothing, absolutely nothing in his life made sense any more.

"We don't know that", Tae sighed, "but whoever gave it to you, they made you a favour, in a certain way."

"Bollocks", Noiz mumbled.

"Mind that tongue, kid!" Tae grumbled. "I know the outcome was painful, especially for you, but apart from the switch of Aoba's personality and the memory loss, which were obviously also hard for Aoba, it might have provided a most welcome low profile, keeping Aoba hidden from Toue's vigilant eye. Or do you think he would give up on his experiment if he knew Aoba was out there, grown up and in possession of this power?"

Noiz narrowed his eyes into slits, suspicious.

"You sure know a lot for just being an ex employee of Toue Inc. Pharmaceutics... I wonder how did Aoba arrive to that orphanage in the first place..."

Tae grunted at Noiz' words and said nothing.

"Granny..." Aoba started, feeling already guilty for what he was about to ask. "Were you the one who gave me that experimental drug?"

Tae's sad face was an answer in itself... to Aoba's relief. Noiz cleared his throat and stared at a point in the wall.

"In fact..." the German boy whispered, "I have an idea of who might have drugged you that night."

"What?! You never said anything!"

Aoba was dumbfounded. Was everybody hiding facts from him? What the hell... He heard his other self cursing loud.

"I don't have any evidence, mind you, it's just a hunch. But the more I think about it and the more I know about your background, the more sense it makes. I still don't know the 'why', though."

"...And?" Aoba encouraged.

"Do you remember that pair of freaks who used to follow you around when you played Rhyme? Those two who dress and look very similar?"

 _The 'not twins'?_ , his other self asked, puzzled. _What do they have to do with this?_

"You are talking about Virus and Trip, right?" Aoba asked. "Why would they want to make me lose my memory?"

"That's a good question", Tae mumbled. "What do we know about those men, Noiz?"

But the boy shook his head.

"I know very little. They are private guys, and wouldn't tell me anything when I asked them."

"I... I can't remember anything, sorry", Aoba added.

His other self remained silent. Noiz threw him a pointed look, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm sure the other Aoba can tell us more", he said.

"Hmmm..." Aoba paused to listen, but his other half didn't say a word. "Say something, you."

 _No_ , the voice said at last.

Aoba let go a frustrated growl.

"Don't be like that, we need to know", he insisted.

 _I said 'no'_. The voice was icy cold and cutting. _However, I have no clue about why they would want to make me lose my memory._

"He refuses to cooperate", Aoba sighed, "but he says he doesn't know the reason they might have, either."

The three of them (or the four) stayed silent for a moment, thinking hard.

"I think perhaps they will speak if you are the one who ask them, Aoba", Noiz said at last. "I dread the thought of you anywhere near those freaks, but it may be the only way to find out what is really happening here."

Uncertain, Aoba's eyes wandered from Tae's face to Noiz'. He was at a loss for words, unable to decide what to do, what to think about, even.

"Are you saying...?" he tried after a long silence, the others' attention on him. "Are you saying that I should go back to Midorijima and face Virus and Trip?"

" _We_ should go back to the island", Noiz answered quickly. "I'm not letting you go on your own, not with all of this. It's too dangerous for you to approach those two alone."

"But! You have school, and your job, and your family..."

Noiz let go a defeated sigh.

"Christmas holidays are just weeks away... I have a whole month of school break. My father will be rather pissed, but I will take the entire month off from work."

Aoba still didn't know what to think. The whole situation was confusing, to say the least. And on top of that, he felt that he should hide from Noiz how relieved and overjoyed he was about the fact of going back to Midorijima, even if it was just for a month.

 _I don't want to go back_ , the voice whined.

Aoba ignored it thoroughly. The mood in the room lighted considerably, and Tae smiled weakly and added:

"Aoba, I had something else to tell you that has nothing to do with this... Do you remember Koujaku?"

A smile appeared on his face at hearing the name of his childhood friend.

"Of course I do."

"Well, he has just come back to the island. He visited me the other day and asked me about you."

Aoba felt his whole face lighting up.

"Really? Oh my god, I haven't seen him in ages! Is he staying in the island for good now, or just passing by?"

"He has settled down, yes. He works as a hairdresser now."

Aoba laughed. Hairdresser? Koujaku? That was so odd! But of course he still thought of Koujaku as that older boy who used to play with him when he was a child, what did he know about how he might have grown... He couldn't even remember what the boy wanted to be when they used to hang out together, either way. He was just ten and Koujaku sixteen the last time he saw him.

By his side, Noiz was watching him with his usual poker face on, and Aoba decided it was indeed late and the two of them needed their rest. So he assured Tae he would be okay and they said goodnight to each other before ending the Skype call. Noiz followed him to bed, and once there they turned in between murmurs of reassurance. The other Aoba must have gone to sleep too, because he was silent, although Aoba could feel his slightly sulking presence.


	6. Chapter 6

**I don't if someone is reading this, since I don't get any comments…** **But well, if you are following the story I hope you are enjoying it! I'm certainly having fun while writing it! ;)**

* * *

Narita's international airport was crowded with businessmen pulling their huge suitcases while greeting each other. Had Noiz not changed into his old colourful clothes, he would have passed completely unnoticed among the sea of dark ties. He kept looking around with his usual poker face, but there was an unmistakable tension in his stance. By his side, Aoba grinned, seemingly oblivious, chattering nonstop.

"I bet you are glad it's me outside today, aren't you?" he asked Noiz, smirking. "My other self is currently curled into a ball, panicking about the fact we are travelling from Germany to Japan with a fake passport."

Indeed, as the situation in Midorijima had turned rather difficult in the last years, Noiz had acquired a fake passport for Aoba the moment they decided to move to Germany. In it, it said Aoba was born in Tokyo, instead of his island, and that his mother was German. Noiz stated that given Aoba's light eye colour he would pass as a half breed, and so far they hadn't had any problem. Returning to Japan was, again, the easy part, if Aoba managed to keep a straight face at the customs agent, which he did, but of course Noiz still had doubts whether they would be allowed to enter Midorijima or not.

"I would be gladder if you haven't almost got us kicked from the plane, you idiot", Noiz answered with a light frown.

Aoba laughed, prompting a small grin from Noiz on cue.

"Hey, what was I supposed to do during all those hours, bored to death and with a hot guy like you by my side? The flight is so fucking long…"

Noiz chuckled, shaking his head. Some things would never change.

"Well, I hope you can keep your libido at bay until we arrive to your island… I don't want to get arrested for public indecency now that we at last are out from that damned plane."

"Yeah…" Aoba looked around, turning serious.

They were at last in Japan, after the endless hours of flight, but being in Tokyo wasn't the same as being in Midorijima. The airport seemed alien to Aoba, and he longed for the feeling of being at home. He had been only six months abroad, but all the homesickness he had felt during that period seemed to gather on his shoulders all of a sudden, and he couldn't wait to arrive to Midorijima.

As soon as they left the airport, they took a bus and then a boat to the island, carrying their heavy luggage all the while. Their passports were checked again during the boat trip, as they imagined, and they saw some people being refused entry to Midorijima, so when the boat reached shore they would be forced to stay in the ship and come back to the main island. Aoba petted Ren's soft fur every time the Midorijima customs agents approached them, as a way to calm down. Even though he was keeping a brave face for Noiz, he was actually rather nervous. The situation in his home island only seemed to have worsened, if the amount of weaponry the agents carried was an indicator. So he carried his sleeping allmate on his arm the whole trip, and if he held his pet with more strength than necessary, luckily nobody noticed.

The sun was hiding behind the horizon by the time they arrived at last to Midorijima, and the two of them felt as if they had been travelling for a week, exhaust and in dire need of a shower. A short taxi ride, with Aoba's nose stuck to the window, drinking the familiar sight of the streets, and they were left in front of Tae's house. For a heartbeat, Aoba stayed frozen at the threshold, allowing Noiz to go ahead and ring the bell for them. _What if she is disappointed that it's me the one she has to greet?_ , he wondered, feeling his stomach churn from the anticipated rejection. _It's the other Aoba the one she loves, I bet she couldn't be happier when I got out of her hair._ But suddenly there were a pair of short but strong arms thrown around him, and he relaxed at last and sank into the embrace of his grandmother, all self-loath and doubts be damned.

"Aoba! You look really fine, my boy…" the old woman muttered on his ear, making him smile fondly.

"I have missed you a lot, granny!"

Noiz watched the reunion with a wide smile, slightly out of the way to give them a bit of privacy, until Tae pulled him into a tight embrace too.

"Come here, kid! You have taken care of my grandson very well, I can see that."

Noiz was too awkward to say anything in response, and Aoba couldn't help to chuckle.

"Enough, granny! You are embarrassing him!"

"This is my house and I will embarrass him as much as I want", the woman grunted, before letting Noiz go. "I bet you are hungry after the long trip; I didn't know the exact time you would arrive, so I have waited for you to have dinner. It's all set in the kitchen. So why don't you let your luggage in your bedroom and get ready for dinner, boys?"

They nodded and carried their suitcases upstairs. They couldn't be more glad of getting rid of their luggage at last, after pulling and carrying it for so long. Aoba dived for his bed and allowed himself a minute of feeling warm and comfortable and at home, while Noiz chuckled and went to the toilet to refresh a little.

"We are here", Aoba said aloud once he was alone. "At home, at last."

 _Yes!_ , the voice inside of him said, joyful. _I still can't believe we made it through the border!_

"Tsch. I told you we would. You are always overthinking everything. Now we can relax and enjoy for a bit, don't you think?"

His other self laughed.

 _I thought you didn't want to come back to Midorijima…Confess you are really looking forward to see Mizuki and the rest of our friends!_

"Ah, yesssss! The Black Needle! I have definitely missed that! And playing fucking Rhyme! I haven't played in ages, damn it!"

The voice turned sombre.

 _Don't get us into trouble, please. Remember that we are not here for holidays, we have a task to do._

Aoba's face fell.

"I know, I know, no need to be such a killjoy…"

"Hey, Aoba, are you done chilling out?" Noiz asked from the door. His hair was wet, dripping slightly over his t-shirt, but he didn't seem to mind. "Tae is waiting for us downstairs, and besides I'm so hungry I could eat an elephant, trunk and all."

Aoba rolled his eyes and got up from his bed, missing the softness and the warmth already. _Soon_ , he promised his bed.

The meal was abundant and varied, as Noiz and Aoba expected from Tae, although Aoba merely tasted a bit of everything but couldn't really savour anything, so exhaust that he had to make a great effort to keep his eyes open. By the end of the dinner he was dozing off more than once, and Noiz started elbowing him on his ribs to keep him awake. So the conversation was mostly Tae asking Noiz about every detail of their flight and boat trip, and Noiz trying to be conversational for once. He was still a little wary of her, especially then that they were face to face. Speaking with someone via internet was easier for Noiz, and Aoba knew that in normal circumstances Noiz would be leaving to him all the dinner conversation. Fortunately, Tae was also happy to just watch Noiz gulping down all the food she had cooked, and said aloud that she was glad to have someone who really enjoyed eating, for once. That earned her a glare from the half asleep Aoba, who kept playing with his food more than eating.

When Tae got up to clear the table and bring the dessert the doorbell rang, and Aoba groaned loudly.

"Oh, no! Who have you invited, granny? Whoever it is, they could have waited until tomorrow; I swear I'm going to pass out of exhaustion right now."

"Oh, shut up! I don't know who might be."

The small woman went to the entrance to attend the door, and Noiz sighed, too stuffed and sleepy to be annoyed, and got up to help clear the plates. Aoba thought the visit might be some neighbour or a friend of Tae, but the male voice that reached his ears was young and unfamiliar. Their steps approached the kitchen and then a strange figure stood by the door, following Tae. It was a young male, yes, a man in his middle twenties with long black hair in an adorned pony tail and eyes of an almost red shade of brown. The two things that turned him into a strange sight were the fact that there were scars littering all his visible skin, even one across his nose and cheekbones, and that he was wearing a red kimono over his black jeans. _Who the fuck wears a kimono on a regular day?_ , Aoba thought, slightly amused.

"Aoba!" the young man shouted. "I'm so happy you are also back in the island!"

His smile was short lived, though. As the guy was clearly advancing and starting to open his arms for an embrace, a glare from Aoba cut the gesture short, and he stood by the table with a hesitant and forced little smile, looking at Tae for indications. The old woman grunted and signalled an empty chair.

"Please sit down, Koujaku, I was just about to serve the dessert. I know very well you have a sweet tooth, so don't bother to refuse a piece of cake."

"Oh, I wouldn't even dream of refusing any food made by you, Tae!" the guy said with a wide smile again.

He sat on the chair and grinned awkwardly in Aoba's direction. Noiz finished clearing the table while Tae brought dessert plates and spoons.

"This is Noiz, by the way", the old woman said, gesturing Noiz. The boy nodded as a greeting, ignoring the hand Koujaku was reaching to be shaken. "He is the one who kidnapped my grandson and took him to Germany… But well, it's all said and done now, who I am to say anything…"

Aoba scoffed. He kept glaring at Koujaku every time the young man addressed him a shy smile, and he was too tired to try to be nice anyway. Noiz obviously felt the same way, because he proceeded to focus on his piece of cake and ignore Koujaku.

 _Hey, could you not be so cold and rude to Koujaku?_ The voice in his head was clearly annoyed. _He was my best friend for years, so behave yourself!_

Aoba simply shrugged; he barely remembered Koujaku so he didn't feel like making any effort for his sake. It was Tae who broke the awkward silence.

"Sorry, Koujaku, but Aoba and Noiz are really tired after the long trip; I'm sure you will have the chance to catch up once they have rested". The guy in the kimono nodded, relaxing a bit. "So tell me, you have come back to Midorijima on your own, I see. How does your mother do?"

A shadow passed across Koujaku's features.

"I regret to say she passed away some years ago", he said.

"Oh, I'm really sorry for your loss!" Tae added with sadness. "She was a really gentle and good natured person. How did that happen, if I may ask? Was she ill?"

Koujaku studied the contents of his dessert plate, tapping the cake with his spoon.

"…It happened a little after we arrived to the main island, sorry, I can't remember the details. I went to live with my father relatives for a while, but that wasn't really my place, so in the end I thought coming back to Midorijima could be a good option."

The three of them were staring at him, speechless, but Tae reacted quickly and shook her head.

"Of course, of course. You will be fine here. Things are more or less like when you went away, we have very few changes in this island… I'm glad to see you all grown up and doing well with your job."

Koujaku smiled again and nodded. Afterwards, he only stayed five minutes more, because Aoba was starting to doze off again and even Noiz couldn't refrain from yawning now and then.

"For fuck's sake, I thought I would never be allowed to go to bed!" Aoba sighed dramatically when they went upstairs at last.

Noiz offered him a tired smile and proceeded to change into his pyjamas. His boyfriend gave a predatory look to his bare chest, eliciting a chuckle from the boy.

"Go to the toilet and get ready for bed!" Noiz suggested. "And then we will see if you are still as horny as you were in the plane."

"Sure thing!"

But once in the bathroom there were a pair of angry greenish eyes glaring at him from his reflection on the mirror. Aoba sighed, too tired for arguing with his other self.

"Are you still pissed because I wasn't nice enough with your childhood sweetheart?" he snapped.

 _It-It's not like that!_ , the voice stuttered. _But Koujaku was a very dear friend. Can't you remember him?_

"Hardly, sorry."

 _He used to play with us when granny had to work until late. He stayed so we didn't feel lonely. He defended us from those stupid bullies who used to follow us after school. Do you remember how they pulled our hair and called us names? It was Koujaku who made them stop, every time. And he always knew how to make us laugh. I can't believe you don't remember him!_

"Barely, as I said, and it's not like if any of that matter, anyway."

 _But it does! What the hell matters for you then!_

The voice was enraged, but luckily the presence vanished soon after, and Aoba could go back to his old bedroom and get snug in his bed, wrapping his body around Noiz due to the lack of space inside the narrow bed. Not that they cared, though; they slept like that sometimes in their huge bed in Germany, too. As he felt his eyelids getting more and more heavy and his limbs relaxed, Aoba gave up on his previous idea of jumping Noiz as soon as they were finally alone: that would have to wait until the next morning.

"I get you didn't remember that friend of yours?"

Aoba hummed.

"But my other self does. So it seems we will have to see more of Koujaku, sorry."

"Sorry for what? He is a bit weird, but if he is your friend, I don't mind at all". Aoba nuzzled his neck as a way of saying ' _thank you'_. "Talking about friends, tomorrow we should go to the Black Needle."

"Oh, yes! I'm really looking forward to see Mizuki! And afterwards we will go to play Rhyme! Fuck, I miss it a lot!" Noiz hummed in agreement. "Don't tell me you haven't missed playing Rhyme? You were as addicted as I was."

"Would you believe it if I said I haven't? Not much, anyway. I've been too focused on my studies and work to think much about it."

"Tsch. Stop acting all grown up, what a bore…"

Noiz chuckled and kissed him on his frowned forehead.

"Ok, ok… But I am looking forward to see all my Ruff Rabbits mates again, it will be nice. And…" His voice suddenly turned serious. "We most definitely must go to the Rhyme playgrounds if we want to find Virus and Trip and talk with them."

Aoba tensed. Noiz obviously noticed, because he started to draw reassuring circles on his lower back.

"Alright, I suppose it can't be helped" Aoba said with a loud sigh. "We are here for a reason, right? So tomorrow night will be it".

And he drifted blissfully into sleep, hiding his face on Noiz' chest as if that gesture could hide him from the world.


	7. Chapter 7

**Warning for sexual harassment in this chapter, I guess. Not too much, but you know how Virus and Trip are.**

The first thing Aoba did in the morning was scolding Noiz for his behaviour with Koujaku the previous evening.

"I was too tired…" Noiz whined, still half asleep. "Alright, babe, I'll try to be nicer to him in the future."

Satisfied with the answer, although still frowning at his boyfriend, the second thing Aoba did was asking his granny for Koujaku's coil number and sending him a message asking to meet for a drink that evening. To his relief, his old friend accepted the invite. _Good_ , he sighed. _I still have a chance to mend last night's disaster. Koujaku surely thinks that I have grown up into an asshole. Well, he's partly right._ He glared at his reflection on the bathroom mirror, but someone was obviously sleeping in.

Noiz and he spent the day wandering by the familiar streets of Midorijima, trying to find all the small changes in the town since their departure. They didn't find many, just some shops that had closed and others that had popped up in their place. Tae was right, it seemed as if things barely changed in the island, but they were sadly aware that the changes, although not visible, were there. It was more like an atmosphere of decay and impasse, somehow more noticeable every time they turned a corner and the silhouette of the huge dome over Platinum Jail could be seen behind the tall buildings.

They came across some familiar faces, too, and Aoba popped by some neighbours to say hello, as Tae has asked him to do. It was nice, really, after those months surrounded by absolute strangers. Noiz didn't mind one way or the other, or so he said, but Aoba observed with a smile how the boy's face lit up when he met two of his former school mates in the street.

"Hey, Noiz", Aoba asked him while they rested their feet in a small café, similar to the one where they first met, but smaller and shabbier. "Won't your parents complain for not staying in Germany for Christmas day? You celebrate that, don't you?"

Noiz sighed and rolled his eyes. Aoba felt a little guilty, since the streets in Karlsruhe were already decorated with lights and the shops glowed with Christmas trees and Santa Claus' decors. He had been looking forward to spend his first Christmas in Germany, a white Christmas at that. He was sure Noiz missed the snow and the German ambience as much as Aoba missed Midorijima; some things are just engraved in our minds and can't be chosen.

"I don't care", Noiz answered, though. "We had my father's birthday dinner two weeks ago, so I have done my part. Don't feel guilty or anything, Aoba. I also wanted to come back here for a visit, and your granny will be a nicer family to spend Christmas with than mine, I swear."

Aoba didn't say anything, but he pursed his lips, upset. He hadn't attended that birthday dinner. So far, he had been at Noiz' parents house just the once, when they arrived to Karlsruhe and Noiz introduced him, but he didn't make a good impression enough, it seemed, even though he tried to be as nice and polite as possible, and learnt some expressions to introduce himself in German politely just for the event. He had met Theo, Noiz' younger brother, about five or six times, but their parents had the boy tied short and controlled his very movement. Aoba was glad that Noiz got to see his brother every Saturday morning, at least, when the younger boy went to help at the family business alongside Noiz.

"Do you think I will ever be invited to your family house again?" Aoba muttered, playing with the plastic spoon of his coffee. "Perhaps we could try again when my German gets better."

"Tsch! Aoba, is not your fault! My father has a stick up his arse and will never bend to see what the rest of people are like; he has his own ideas of how the world works and just ignores any other way. And my mother simply accepts his word and does as he tells her. It's always been like that and they are not going to change. They are horrible, materialistic people."

"…But they are your family."

"Yeah, you don't choose family and all that crap…"

"Better than having none", Aoba whispered to the remains of his coffee, averting his gaze.

He felt Noiz' arms around his shoulders at once.

"Hey. Don't. You have Tae, and me. That's all the family any person needs."

Aoba raised his eyes again and allowed himself to be wrapped in his boyfriend's warmth.

"And let's not forget Ren", he said, smiling a bit.

"Oh, yes", Noiz agreed, kissing his forehead. "A granny, a boyfriend and a robot dog. Way better than two greedy assholes."

"Yeah… I think so."

After dinner they sauntered to the Black Needle. Aoba had asked Koujaku to meet there, to kill two birds with one stone. It was a Thursday evening, so the bar area of the tattoo parlour was half empty, with just a bunch of Dry Juice members, Mizuki's Rib team, hanging out. Aoba and Noiz had met all of them, of course, due to the amount of time they used to spend at Mizuki's place, so they smiled at the familiar faces as soon as they stepped in the store.

"Aoba!" their friend shouted from behind the bar counter at once, grinning from ear to ear. "Noiz! I can't believe my eyes!"

He came forward to hug the two of them, jumping in the balls of his feet with excitement. Noiz and Aoba laughed and clapped his back, and then Noiz turned to greet the rest of the gang.

"I'm so happy to have you back!" Mizuki added.

"It's just for a month, but yeah, I'm happy to have come back, too!" Aoba said, grinning.

"Hey, Aoba", a voice at his back called.

He turned, and there he was, that guy clad in a red kimono, so different and yet so similar to the teen he used to look up to when he was a kid. Koujaku was sitting in a corner of the bar counter, and he watched Aoba with guarded eyes and a shy smile on his face. Aoba didn't have to make any effort to put his brightest smile on his own face before approaching him, still grabbing Mizuki's forearm.

"Mizuki, this is Koujaku. He was my best friend when I was younger, and has recently come back to Midorijima."

"Ah, yes, I have seen him around!"

Aoba turned to look at Mizuki, raising an eyebrow.

"Have you?"

"Yes, he's into Rib as well! Am I right?"

And they both turned his heads to Koujaku to look for confirmation. The young man in the kimono had been staring at Aoba with a concentrated face, and the question surprised him, throwing him out of his reverie.

"Ah, yes, that's true!"

"Are you in a team already?" Mizuki asked at once, smiling eagerly. "Perhaps you would be interested in joining Dry Juice; we are the best Rib team in the island! And also we are like a big family, so I'm sure you would feel really welcome".

Koujaku smiled warmly.

"That looks great… Actually, some guys have offered me to form our own team, with me as their leader, and I'm still considering it."

Mizuki pouted for a second, but he quickly shook his head and smiled again.

"Our loss, then… But as Aoba's friend, please consider myself also your friend. I hope to see you often in the Black Needle!"

"Sure!"

Feeling way better about Koujaku, Aoba sat down on a stool by his side while Mizuki went back to his side of the counter. The conversation was easy afterwards, with them exchanging silly memories and laughing over funny stories. Aoba left aside any painful or uncomfortable memory and focused on all the nice things he could share about the years Koujaku and he hadn't seen each other, and felt that Koujaku was clearly doing the same. There was obviously more than what Koujaku was letting see, but if Aoba was ashamed to tell him about how he dropped school and was into drugs and was, in general, a piece of crap, who was him to question Koujaku further? They were near strangers right then, after all. Still, it was nice being around him, having him back in his life, with his warm smile and that easy and likeable nature of his.

After a couple of beers, the mood in the bar was light and blissful. Aoba have roamed around the store, greeting and talking a bit with everybody, Koujaku was surrounded by a small group of ribsters who drank every word of the story he was telling, and Noiz laughed with Mizuki and another guy, perched on the counter. He watched his boyfriend with a content smile on his face, spending a minute admiring the blush on Noiz' cheeks (the store was stuffed and overheated with people and alcohol, after all) and how his eyes had that mischievous glint that Aoba found so alluring. Then Mizuki called Koujaku, laughing hard, and Aoba noticed that Noiz was showing them something on his coil. He was covering the floating screen with his body, but Aoba had the sudden hunch that they weren't laughing over kittens videos, at all. When he approached the small group, Koujaku and two other guys were already laughing at the images on the screen, and he could only groan in despair when he saw what they were: the damned pictures Noiz had taken of him the last time they went out to drink at a bar, in Germany. Aoba had ended too plastered to even walk, and Noiz had to carry him over his shoulder, like a potato sack, to catch a cab to go back home. As retaliation, Noiz had found it funny to take some photos of his half unconscious face, drool and all, and he was showing them to his friends at that very moment.

"Noiz!" he growled, beyond annoyed.

His boyfriend flashed him an amused grin.

"Mizuki asked if we had fun also in Germany, so I thought of showing him some pics…"

"You brat! You told me you had deleted them!"

Noiz simply cocked an eyebrow at his fuming boyfriend.

"What kind of hacker I would be if I didn't keep a backup copy of everything online?"

Before Aoba could reach for his neck in a vice grip, Noiz chuckled and raised his coil to put it out of Aoba's reach.

"Alright, alright! I will delete them right away! But remember, even you found them funny when I show them to you!"

"But you didn't have to show them around, you jerk!"

Even though, as embarrassed as Aoba felt, the atmosphere was so happy that he didn't have the heart to stay annoyed. Not when even Koujaku was trying, and failing, to hide a grin, and Mizuki and Noiz high-fived. _Perhaps giving up a piece of dignity isn't that bad_ , Aoba thought with a tired smile, retreating to the loo.

Once alone, he felt a familiar presence on his mind.

"Hey, you there?"

 _Of course! Since I can't be out there having fun… at least I can watch._

"Good! What do you think of Koujaku now? Aren't you glad that he is still our friend?"

The voice scoffed.

 _He just wants to bang us._

"What?!" Aoba exclaimed, bewildered. "It's not like that! You and your inflated ego; you always believe that everybody either think we are stupid and weird or they want to have sex with us!"

 _I never said that! But in this case, I would bet my little finger. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing; he is pretty hot. If we weren't already taken, I would say 'go on with that'._

"Stop it, would you! I don't want to think about Koujaku that way, so stop putting images on my mind!"

 _Tsch! As you say._

Still frowning, Aoba washed his heated face, feeling instantly refreshed and with a clearer mind.

"We are leaving now for the Rhyme grounds… Will you stick around? I might need you."

The voice sighed, and Aoba could feel the distress in his other self.

 _I know, I know…_

About an hour later, Aoba and Noiz found themselves at that evening's Rhyme playground. The atmosphere was completely different from the Black Needle and its ribsters. Although Rib gangs liked to dress in flashy clothes as well, and they usually wore tattoos with their Rib brand, they were somewhat innocent compared to the rhymers. Aoba could see it in the glint of their eyes, in the nervous flicks of their fingers. A good amount of them were already high, and even though beer and whisky bottles were going round the groups of young people, the air was tense and lacking in the easy laughter they have seen at the Black Needle. Aoba could sense Noiz silently agreeing, with the way he greeted his Rhyme mates. The Ruff Rabbits seemed sincerely happy to see Noiz again, but Aoba knew that he had barely kept in touch with them. Noiz was still linked to Rhyme because of his betting webpage and the fact that he still sold the information of the exact spot where Usui would open the next Rhyme playground, so he was a familiar figure and everybody acknowledged him, at least with a wave or a nod. But the boy wasn't relaxed, and there wasn't anybody there that he could call a friend.

And for Aoba… well, he could feel all the eyes upon him, but very few people dared to greet him. It was unnerving.

 _Aaaah, Rhyme… I wished I was out there so I could play!_

His other self obviously didn't share his reservations. Aoba gritted his teeth in annoyance; he didn't want to speak back to the other Aoba aloud and being regarded still more like a loony. Then he saw a pair of blond heads at the other side of the street, and squeezed Noiz' hand gently. The boy, who had been talking to some guys without letting go of Aoba's hand, turned to look at him and then followed the direction of his boyfriend's stare.

"Oh. I knew they would be here", he muttered.

He said goodbye to his mates and then they proceeded to go closer to the two blond freaks. Aoba could barely remember them, but he had a sudden flash of this situation being familiar, he approaching the strange duo, always watching the game and the people from a distant spot, never mixing with the rhymers unless they wanted something specific from them. He knew this was less a déjà vu than a real memory from his other self. He wished he had all the relevant memories about these two at that moment, so he didn't feel so uncertain.

Of course the one in the glasses, Virus, saw them first, smiling widely at them while his cold blue eyes seemed to start calculating something, the smile never reaching them.

"Aoba-san and his little boyfriend. I didn't know you had come back to the island, what a nice surprise."

His mate turned to look at them as well, his bored face changing into an easy smile that looked a bit more sincere than his friend's.

"Welcome back to Midorijima, Aoba", he greeted.

Aoba forced a smile and an answer. By his side, Noiz squeezed his hand, and Aoba could feel how in edge he was.

"Thank you, guys. I'm relieved someone is still glad to see me around."

"But of course, Aoba-san", Virus said, raising an eyebrow. "You know perfectly well we are your fans, so we are really happy to see you again." After a short silence, he added: "Are you playing today?"

"Aaah, no, I don't think so. Perhaps another night. In fact, we have come here to see you."

Virus frowned for a second, but he quickly covered it with a smile. His colleague, Trip, didn't bother to smile and stared at them with a serious and unreadable face.

"So you wanted to have some fun, then?" Virus asked with a singsong tone. "We can treat you, as a welcome present."

"Not that!" Aoba hurried to correct. "We just wanted to talk."

Virus cocked his head, feigning surprise.

"Oh, really? And what could you want to talk about with us, I wonder?"

Noiz huffed.

"We want to know why did you wipe Aoba's memory", the boy said, loud and clear.

A long silence was the only answer. After it, Virus and Trip shared a pointed glance and started to turn their backs to Noiz and Aoba.

"We are really glad to see you, Aoba-san. I hope we can see you play Rhyme next time."

That sounded as the end of the conversation, Aoba noticed with anxiety.

 _They will never speak in front of Noiz, get rid of him for a while, quickly!_

His other self was right; they hadn't come back to the island to go back with empty hands.

"Wait for a sec!" He turned to face Noiz and whispered to him. "Noiz, please trust in me and let me speak with them alone."

The boy cocked an eyebrow, suspicious.

"No way."

"Please. It's our only chance. My other self will help me with this."

Noiz frowned but finally looked away.

"Alright. I'll watch you from here. Don't let them drag you too far, if you don't come back in ten minutes I'll go for you, with all my Ruff Rabbits mates if it's necessary."

Aoba nodded, relieved. That sounded rather well. He left Noiz' side, letting go of his hand and missing it already, that anchor to safety, and approached Virus and Trip, who were watching him some feet away.

"What about talking in a more private place?" he asked them, feigning a self-confidence that he was far from feeling.

 _Much better_ , the other Aoba approved.

Virus and Trip seemed surprised, but they reacted at once, smiling back at him and gesturing towards a side back alley.

 _OK, they will start touching you about_ now. _Don't. Jump._

 _What?_ , Aoba thought, in dismay. As in cue, he felt a hand on his waist, as if guiding him in the right direction. Only that it was a too intimate gesture for Aoba's comfort.

 _You are too tense, just play it off._

Aoba cursed inwardly. How could he play it off? They arrived to the alley, and as Aoba had predicted it was completely empty and rather dark, the only light coming from a couple of windows above. It was a narrow space, packed with boxes and metal gears, and it seemed more a storage space than a street, so of course it wasn't graced with street lights at all. Trip's hand guided him to rest his back against a wall, but he didn't withdraw his arm from around his waist, choosing to slither a couple of fingers along his hip instead, rubbing circles with his thumb. It wasn't a gesture Aoba was unfamiliar with; Noiz would caress him that way often. But instead of the nice warmth Noiz' hand would elicit, Aoba started to feel too uncomfortable and tense to even think properly, and he had to fight the need to push that arm away from him.

 _Relax, or you will fuck it up!_

The voice was right, but he wished he could say him back that there was no way he could do that. Aoba started to feel cold sweat going down his back.

In front of him, Virus grinned, and it wasn't his polite smile from before. Not at all.

"You look like a caged rabbit, Aoba-san. Are you sure you don't want one of our pills, to help you relax a bit?"

Aoba shook his head. He could feel Trip's breath near his ear, too damned close, and when Virus came one step closer to him he had the sudden urge to shout for help. What had he gotten into? He didn't even know the kind of relationship he had with these two in the past, and right then it was too late to ask his other self.

 _You are a fucking burden…_ , the other Aoba said, annoyed. _You must stand your ground with these two. Tell them if they are such great fans, as they always say, then they should help you to understand better what happened to you._

Aoba licked his lips and tried to stop his tremors.

"You always say you are my fans… Then prove it! Help me to understand what happened to me that night."

Virus' eyes lit in interest. One of his hands approached to Aoba's hair, but he shook his head to avoid the contact. Letting go an annoyed sigh, Virus answered:

"Nothing that you need to know. Aren't you happy with your little boyfriend and your little life? Believe us, things are better like they are now. We only have your happiness in mind, Aoba-san."

The other Aoba let go an outraged growl.

 _Rubbish! Insist, Aoba, come on!_

"But I need to know, and it's me the one who must judge what it's important or not. I know you were the ones who erased my memories, but I don't know the reason. So stop wriggling and tell me!"

Suddenly, there was a strong hand around his throat, and Trip's arm wasn't stroking him as much as constraining his movements. Virus let his fingers play around Aoba's neck, without applying much force, but Aoba knew a threat when he saw it.

"Such an ungrateful brat… After all the care we have provided…" Then Virus sighed again and let go of Aoba's throat. He pushed his glasses up his nose and stepped back. "Fly to your boyfriend, little bird."

The voice inside his head cursed.

 _Let me take over! Quickly!_ Aoba was startled. What? What was he supposed to do? They only were able to exchange places when they woke up, it seemed. _Just relax and stop pushing me down. Close your eyes, come on, try it!_

Aoba considered his options for a second. Noiz and he could ask his Ruff Rabbit's mates to use the force against Virus and Trip, but Aoba was certain that that wouldn't work: those two would only speak out their own choice. And he didn't seem able to convince them to tell him the truth. So he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, leaving his mind completely blank.

The other Aoba grinned at seeing himself on the surface again. He opened his eyes and found himself in a disgusting and dark alley, in front of those not less disgusting and dark guys.

 _Hey, it worked!,_ his other self shouted in joy from inside.

He smirked. It had been only a hunch, but yes, it had worked. Now, time to work. Watching Virus intently in the eyes, he lowered his voice into a purr.

"I think I will take your offer… Haven't had good stuff in a while."

Virus opened his eyes wide in surprise, and the hand of his colleague, still on Aoba's waist, move aside all of a sudden, as if burned.

"Sly!" Virus exclaimed, with a kind of warmth he hadn't shown before. "You are still there!"

"Of course I am! Did you have any doubt?"

And he moved in a lazy, catlike little jump, out of reach of their grabby hands. He rested his back against the wall in front of the one he was before, and stretched his arms with a flirty smirk. Now he had them exactly where he wanted, their eyes pinned to his lithe body but their hands out of his bubble of personal space, and he felt extremely more in control. The freeing sensation of the pill in his mouth when Virus offered it to him only added to his good vibrations right then.

"I am happy to see you back… We have missed you a lot, right, Trip?"

"Oh, yes."

Trip's face didn't seem as eager as Virus, though, but Aoba didn't care. When he felt in charge and satisfied enough, he added a little nuance to his voice and said:

"Now you two are going to explain me what's going on here. And I want all of it, the naked truth, nice or not, I don't care. Just spill it out!"

Their reactions to his voice were quite a sight. The two of them opened their mouths in awe, and Virus dropped to his knees.

"Sly… Master… Say something else…" Virus begged.

Trip nodded eagerly, his dead eyes suddenly bright with excitement.

His other self froze.

 _What have you done? Have you used that power? It's too dangerous, you shouldn't!_

Aoba groaned.

"Haven't you heard what I asked? Start talking!"

"We will tell you everything you want… Just keep talking."

Virus walked on his knees until his hands reached the hem of Aoba's jacket, and then Trip seemed to gather the courage to go closer to him as well.

"Stop touching me, you assholes! Come back to that wall over there!"

"But Aoba-san… Sly… you can't refuse us at least this…" Virus whined, still on his knees, seemingly unable to stop his hands from rubbing Aoba's arm.

Trip had caught his hand, and was stroking the back of it, gently, staring at him with fervour in his eyes. Annoyed, Aoba decided it was a small price to pay if he wanted to make them speak.

"Alright… Geez, you guys! Let's sit down."

He was really glad Noiz couldn't see him right then. He couldn't help to glance at the alley entrance once, to make sure it was still empty and Noiz was keeping his word of allowing him ten minutes alone with the freaks. He sat down on Trip's lap, with one of his large hands around his shoulder and another one rubbing at his jeans clad thigh, and Virus sat down close to them, as close in fact that their legs were intertwined. The bespectacled guy took hold of his loose pony tail and stroked it with delicate and persistent movements.

"What's up with you and my hair?" Aoba grunted in Virus direction, annoyed. The other simply chuckled, apparently pleased with the turn of events. "Alright, now, start talking already!"

"Aoba-san has always been so raw, yet so strong…" Virus' voice was dreamy, as if the young man was lost in distant memories. "So different from his brother."

 _What? What has he said?_

"My brother? What brother?"

Virus stared at his eyes with an almost sad smile.

"Ah, it's true, I was already quite certain that you didn't know about your twin brother, Sei-san…"

 _We have… a twin brother?_

Flabbergasted, Aoba almost repeated aloud his other self's words.

"How… how come? And how do you know it?"

"Isn't it cute, how little he knows?"

"Hmmm, certainly", Trip agreed.

"Don't piss me off", Aoba warned, forcing his voice again, in a different nuance this time. The two blonds whined in discomfort.

"Sorry, Aoba-san. We don't want to tick you off, we love you so much. You are so special, so beautiful. Just like your brother."

"Tell me more about my brother. Where is he? How come you know him?"

The blonds exchanged a pointed look over Aoba's shoulder before Virus nodded and started talking again. Trip huffed, and Aoba could feel his breath on his nape. Disgusting. He grabbed the hand on his thigh and placed it downwards, far from his crotch area, where it had slithered almost imperceptibly.

"We were recruited to work at Toue Inc. when we were very young, Aoba-san". _Oh?_ , Aoba thought, not knowing where did this come from all of a sudden. "It was at the very beginning of Rhyme. Toue was researching about it, and Usui was being developed… It was a magical moment, and we had the certainty that History was being written, and that we were part of it. After some years of training, Trip and I succeeded in reaching Toue's inner circle… and then we were allowed to meet Sei-san." His eyes came back to Aoba's face, and he smiled sweetly while he wrapped a lock of blue hair around his index finger. He was carefully enough to not hurt Aoba doing so, but still a muffled discomfort ran from the tips of his hair to his scalp. "He is Usui, and Usui is him. Don't ask me exactly how it works, because they have never told us, but I know it's true. Sei-san has been locked in the labs since he was born, and experiment after experiment has been run through his body and mind… Now he is just a vessel, a wrecked little thing, frail as a newborn, but his power… oh, if you could be aware of his power! It is grand. So Trip and I are the ones who take care of his weak body, and make sure he is always clean and well fed. If it wasn't for us, Sei-san would never walk or move from his bedroom at all, since he currently lacks any willpower to do so… You should be grateful to us, Aoba-san, for taking care so well of your brother."

What Aoba felt, in fact, was a sickening bundle in his stomach. _All of that can't be true, right? Granny would have told us. Or she wouldn't?_ His other self was too shocked to say anything, but he could feel his pain, so strong that it was almost physical, and for a moment he thought he was going to throw up. Or perhaps it was his other self who was going to be sick, he couldn't tell anymore.

"…I'm not saying Sei-san is not beautiful, of course", Virus continued. "Oh, he is. Such a special being. But you can imagine our glee when we found you in the Rhyme grounds and started to investigate about you, and we found out you were born at Toue Inc. facilities… from the same experiment as Sei-san. You were even born joined by your hair, you know? I suppose that's why your hair is so delicate, Aoba-san…", he laughed, twirling a lock of hair with delight.

Aoba was enraged, not bothered by his hair at all at that moment. All of that was making his head spin, and he was too conscious of how Trip's hands travelled through his body right then. He snapped when he felt a soft brush of lips against his nape, prompting a full body shudder.

"Stop it right now!" he yelled at his back.

Trip sighed. Virus came a little closer, his face barely inches of Aoba's shoulder, and he suddenly let his hand run up Aoba's inner thigh, making him feel unbearably dirty and sick. He wondered if his other self was still watching him, and what of a slut he would think he was. _Not that I deserve less_ , he thought with disgust and self-loath. Instead of standing up and running away, as all his instincts shouted at him, he just grabbed again those hands and pushed them far from his private parts. He still couldt feel Trip's other hand abandoning his shoulder in favour of his ass, but he couldn't fight every war front.

"Keep on talking", he asked with all the strength he could put in his voice.

"Yes… sorry, Aoba-san. We were happy to find the source of your unusual power in Rhyme, and to find out how strong and lively you had grown, without having to go through all those experiments poor Sei-san had to endure all his life… We don't know exactly how you managed to escape from the facilities, but we assume someone took you out when you were a baby, right?" Trip nodded behind Aoba. "But then we started to worry about how Toue would react when he discovered you were alive and all grown up… and he was bound to find you, Aoba-san, with the name you were making for yourself in Rhyme."

"So we decided to stop you in time", Trip intervened. "To keep you safe and far from Toue's hands."

"Yes… Aren't you grateful, Aoba-san, that we avoided you had to live as your brother, locked in a lab for the rest of your life?"

Virus finally dared to grace his jaw with a brush of lips, and Aoba slipped away and flapped his hands, upset and disgusted. He managed to stand up, stumbling, and put some feet of distance between them. He had to close his eyes for a moment to clear his mind. It was… too much. He wished he could ask his other self for guide, but the guy was silent, so he had to decide on his own.

"Right. You are going to help me rescue Sei from Toue's facilities."

The two young men looked at each other in amused disbelief.

"What? How are we supposed to do that?"

"Tomorrow evening. After Rhyme, you will let me in Platinum Jail and Toue's labs. And then you will allow me to go out taking Sei with me."

Trip opened his mouth to argue, but Virus smiled and caught his mate's arm, silencing him.

"Of course, Aoba-san. It won't be easy, but we will try our best! Poor Sei-san has had enough of that life, after all. He isn't going to live much more at this rate, so why not?"

 _That was… too easy,_ he thought with suspicion. All he could do was reinforcing his order with his voice.

"You will help me to take Sei out of Platinum Jail, is it clear? You won't alert Toue or any of his men".

The two men nodded.

"Will do", Trip assured.

"Of course, you can trust us", Virus added.

 _Trust in you?,_ he scoffed inwardly _. How dumb do you think I am?_

"It's a deal, then. See you tomorrow evening, weirdos."

And with a wave of his hand, he started to stride out of the alley, his blood thrumming in his ears.

… _So you used to fuck with them, I see_ , the voice said, annoyed. _You could have warned me._

"Tsch, of course not! Things were always more or less like today with those two, I have always found them creepy. And I had the hunch that they are not the kind of guys who would be satisfied with just a pair of shags."

His other self was puzzled, but damn it, he had enough to chew at the moment to worry about him.

Once in the main back street, well lit thanks to Usui and the Rhyme virtual ground, he spotted Noiz and went to meet him, relieved, and then he grabbed his hand and kept walking quickly, even though all he wanted to do right then was hugging Noiz and feeling safe again in his arms.

"I have a fucking lot to tell you… So keep on walking until we reach home, love."

Noiz opened his mouth and a deep crease formed between his small eyebrows.

"…Aoba? When have you changed?"

Aoba laughed, letting all the tension go in his nervous laughter, and heard how his other self chuckled as well, both of them exhausted.

"Sorry, it's been a long day. I need a tea and my bed, and then we talk, alright?"

Noiz nodded with a tense smile, but he pulled him closer and threw an arm around his shoulders, and they headed home that way.


	8. Chapter 8

That night was packed with dreams, and Aoba kept waking startled until he finally roused, bathed in cold sweat and thoroughly confused. The dreams had been so vivid that he couldn't tell if they were figments of his imagination or bits of real memories. Besides, he was uncertain of whom of his two halves he was at that moment: he felt like the two of them at the same time. He got up, trembling a little bit, his limbs clumsy and not cooperative at all, and dragged his feet out of the bedroom and along the corridor to the bathroom. Once there he looked at the mirror, searching for closure. He had trouble opening his eyes fully, due to the light and the remains of sleep that kept pulling his lids down, but in the end he succeeded, and there they were, a pair of light brown orbs gazing at him from his reflection. He was still trembling, and the dreams seemed more real in his mind that the bathroom in which he was standing.

It was again the beach dream. It was the same place he was in when he was inside, but at the same time it was slightly different. It might be just the light. He was six in the dream, and he was, once again, sobbing quietly, alone, sitting on the shore. It was before his father appeared. His other self was right; it was ridiculous to treasure that moment, but it had been a milestone in its day, something really important to him.

"Hey, Aoba…" he whispered quietly. "Can you hear me?"

The answer came after just a few seconds. His eyes on the mirror acquired a paler tone, more yellow than brown.

… _Yes_.

"So you are having trouble sleeping as well?" The voice said nothing, but he felt an agreement in the silence. "I think… I think I have remembered something. It used to be three of us instead of just two. Do you remember?"

 _Hmmm? Three of us? No… Wait! Yes, now I remember! There were three voices inside of us_.

"So it wasn't just a dream after all… I couldn't be sure."

 _The other one was annoying…_ The voice chuckled with sudden glee. _I remember how we used to argue all the time!_ Then the glee fell as quickly as it had appeared. _But where is he now? How come we are now only two?_

"Virus and Trip said our twin was joined to us by our hair… You know how they say some twins are so close that they can even communicate through their minds. So perhaps, even if we were separated as babies, our minds kept joined for a while?"

 _Hmmm. Perhaps. Who knows._

The voice was uncertain, echoing how Aoba felt at that moment. Everything was confusing. Noiz had been bewildered by the story, when he told him the previous night. Aoba wanted to leave the talk to his grandma to the next morning, but Noiz had insisted on hearing her side of the story that same night. It had been heartbreaking for Aoba, to see her crying again. She was always so tough, so strong, that he had only seen her break down twice: the day he woke up in the hospital, with his memories gone, and that night. She felt terrible for not having been able to rescue Sei as well, but Aoba understood it wasn't easy, not with Toue and his researchers with theirs eyes upon Sei the whole time. So in the end he wasn't as upset with her as he thought he would be. And she begged them to go on with the plan, so she would have the chance to take care of Sei and help him from then on. That seemed… great to Aoba, it really was, but he still felt an awful migraine starting at his temples. He sighed, and went back to bed. A couple of hours of sleep would do wonders to his headache.

Some hours later, he opened his eyes to the morning light already coming through the veranda glass door, and the migraine seemed to have vanished. Good. Noiz' body was pleasantly warm by his side, he could feel his other self's reassuring presence inside of his head and everything seemed definitely better than at night time. There was still a knot in his stomach and a sense of upcoming danger, though, and when Noiz opened an eye Aoba kissed him before the boy couldn't even mutter a word.

They made love torturously slow, and Aoba hoped Noiz wasn't fully aware of how desperate were his kisses that morning. The other Aoba was more on the surface than ever before, and at some points, when he felt his consciousness drift because of the pleasure, they exchanged places during some seconds, and in the stretched, endless moment of his orgasm, he could swear the two of them were there, sharing their body to the same extent. Noiz stared at him afterwards, speechless.

"What is it?" Aoba asked, still breathless.

Noiz just shook his head, and Aoba was glad. He didn't know how to put what he was feeling in words.

As they didn't have anything planned until the evening, Aoba took the chance to spend some hours alone in his bedroom, practising with his other self how to take over like they had done the previous night.

 _Let's practise also how to use our voice_ , the other Aoba urged.

But he was still hesitant.

"I don't think that's a good idea… It's too dangerous."

 _It turned out well last night, come on! No need to be always so meek_.

"I'm not meek, thank you very much!" Aoba exclaimed, angry. "You couldn't be sure that last night it would work as well as it did, you were just improvising!"

The voice scoffed.

 _It was Virus and Trip… It wouldn't have been a great loss anyway. Especially after what they did to us._

Aoba pressed his lips in annoyance. His other self was definitely dense.

"But if you had fried their brains and turned them into vegetables, we would have never known of Sei! Have you even considered that?"

The grunt that followed evidenced that no, that thought hadn't crossed his mind. Aoba sighed.

"Look, I know we should gain control over that power but… it's not like if we could use Noiz or granny to practise, right?"

 _Of course not!_

"So, what about forgetting about it for now?"

The other Aoba cursed loudly and pouted for a while, but in the end they just practised how to exchange places at will, as Aoba had asked.

They stopped at dinner time, and he was glad: the mental exercise was certainly exhausting. When he stepped in the kitchen, Noiz was already sitting at the table, working with his laptop, but he raised his eyes from the screen at once and gave Aoba a worried look.

"Aoba, would you like to take a nap after dinner? We still have some hours until the Rhyme matches start."

"Ah, no, thank you. No need for that."

He walked to the kitchen counter and started taking the cutlery, chopsticks and glasses from the cupboards. But when he faced the table again, with his hands full of dining items, he found Noiz' eyes still glued to him, with the same little frown and serious face that was his boyfriend's most concerned expression.

"Are you sure? You look tired", Noiz insisted.

Aoba didn't usually care about his boyfriend being rather overprotective, he really didn't, and sometimes he even enjoyed the feeling, although he would rather die than confess it. But at that very moment he was starting to feel slightly annoyed.

"I'm a bit tired, alright, but I don't need a nap; I'll be OK, so please relax."

"But…" Noiz bit his lower lip and looked away, not finishing his sentence and piquing Aoba's curiosity.

"But what?" Aoba asked, instead of biting his tongue as his instinct was telling him.

Noiz hesitated, still looking anywhere but at Aoba's face, but in the end he looked at him askance and whispered.

"Your eye colour keeps changing every two minutes."

Aoba raised his hand, as if to touch his eyes, confused, but he realised it was a rather useless gesture and played it off, reaching for his pony tail instead. After an awkward silence, with Tae stealing glances at them now and then, Aoba finished setting the table and sat close to Noiz.

"Noiz…" he muttered. Tae was working at the kitchen counter, with her back towards them. Good. Aoba tried to speak quietly, just for Noiz' ears. "You told me once that you loved the two of us equally, and that you didn't mind which of the two was out here with you."

Noiz automatically reached for his waist, his hand a reassuring and calming presence.

"And I mean it", Noiz replied quickly, keeping his voice low as well. "It's just…"

"What?"

"I don't want you to get hurt again, Aoba". Noiz' usually monotonous voice was tinged in desperation, and Aoba felt his heart aching as if a hand was gripping it too tightly. "I can't lose you, not again."

Aoba caressed his boyfriend's cheek, softly, feeling a rush of aching love for him.

"You won't lose me. It's going to be alright, you will see. I'll have you by my side this time, so everything will turn out fine".

Noiz leaned in and rested his forehead on Aoba's shoulder, sighing, and the young man hugged him tightly. His mouth felt dry, and he tried to push his nervousness and doubts down his stomach, where they were trying to put his guts in a vice grip. Luckily, Tae announced dinner was ready and that they could stop holding hands on the table and sit down as grown ups already, so they released each other and sat down at their respective chairs, looking forward to the excellent meal that was flooding the whole house with its delicious smell.

Afterwards Noiz and Aoba got ready to go out, and Tae bid them farewell at the door, rubbing the back of her hands in a gesture fraught with anxiety.

"Aoba", she called out when they were already at the front door.

"Hmmm?" The young man was distracted placing Ren carefully on his bag.

"Do you remember the route I drew for you, do you?"

Aoba sighed.

"Of course, granny! The fact that I wasn't able to pass high school doesn't necessarily mean that I can't remember easy things like this."

"…Don't worry, granny", Noiz added from behind Aoba. "He has copied the instructions into Ren, so there's no way we get lost in out way to Platinum Jail."

Aoba felt his cheeks go warm in embarrassment.

"…Yes, that too."

Tae chuckled and hugged the two of them.

"Be careful, alright? Don't play hero. I want you back in once piece."

They tried to reassure the old woman, smiling and promising her they would be very, very cautious. But as soon as they crossed the door and left her there, Aoba wished he felt actually that self-confident. He grasped Noiz' hand, sharing a pointed look for a moment, and started walking through the dark streets of his home town. First stop: the Black Needle. Second stop: Rhyme. Third and last…: the Oval Tower in Platinum Jail.

Having a beer at the Black Needle was refreshing after all the pent-up tension of the day. Aoba hadn't told Koujaku that they would come back the next day, but he had come anyway, and he couldn't be gladder when he realized his old friend was there, in fact, to meet Mizuki and his Dry Juice ribsters, and not him. Although it was obvious in how his face lit when he saw Aoba that he was also hoping to meet him again. Aoba sat by his side, grinning, and enjoyed a bit of easy conversation. Koujaku still treated him like a younger and inexperienced little brother, ruffling his blue hair when he said something funny or dumb, and after a while he felt a familiar hand slithering around his waist.

"Noiz!" Koujaku exclaimed. "I'm glad to see you again. It seems you two are regulars in the Black Needle, isn't it?"

"Yeah. My _boyfriend_ and I come here almost every evening, when we are in the island."

Aoba's cheeks burned in embarrassment, and he hoped everybody thought it was because of the heat in the store or the beer. Why was Noiz making such a display of ownership? So far, he had only done that a couple of times, when someone tried to hit on him on a bar, back in Germany... " _Oh_ ", he realised.

 _I- told- you!_ the voice said in a sing-song tone.

Dying from the sudden awkwardness of the situation, Aoba got up from his stool.

"We-Well, it's about time for us to go, right, Noiz?"

Koujaku looked at him with disappointment.

"But you have just arrived! Stay a little longer? Where are you guys going, anyway? Let me finish my beer and I'll go with you."

"I don't think you would like it..." Noiz answered, grinning with a touch of mischief. "We are playing Rhyme."

"Oh". Koujaku looked from Aoba's face to Noiz' and back. "I thought you didn't play that stupid game anymore, Aoba..."

The young man sighed. " _Yeah, I thought that myself, but here we are_ ", he thought.

"Well, tonight I feel like playing", he said aloud instead. "You know, for the old times."

Koujaku hummed and waved them goodbye, not very convinced. On their way out, Noiz apologised and headed for the loo, and Aoba went out on his own. The back street where the tattoo parlour was located was almost empty, with just a small group of Mizuki's mates smoking, sitting on the stairs at the entrance of the street.

 _See how I was right?_ , his other self told him as soon as he was alone. _Did you make Noiz jealous on purpose?_

"Of course not!" he replied aloud, indignant. "It's not like that with Koujaku, I told you yesterday and I will tell you again every time until it enters that dense little brain of yours! He sees me like a little brother, that's all."

 _Tsch! Keep telling yourself that! But changing of topic... Let me take over now! You've had you fun, now it's my turn_.

"Okay, okay, no need to be pushy..."

He knew the other Aoba was eager to play Rhyme again, since he wouldn't shut up about it the whole day, so they had agreed they would exchange places when they reached the Rhyme playground. He closed his eyes and left his mind blank, as they had practised, and when the store door opened and Noiz stepped out to the street, it was the other Aoba the one he greeted and took his hand to start walking with. Noiz didn't comment on it.

The game was in a different location than the previous evening, but the setting was very similar: a dark and lonely back street, with all the stores already closed for the night and just a restaurant open in the corner. The Rhyme gangs were hanging out outside that only source of light, taking the chance to buy beers and fast food while the owner watched them with uneasiness.

"Hmmm... Are you going to fight against me at last?" Noiz asked, smirking.

"No way!" Aoba let go of his hand, grinning from ear to ear. "Perhaps some other time; we are staying a whole month after all! Tonight I feel like crushing some skulls!"

He took Ren out of his bag and started him up.

"Hey, Ren! Here we go again, old chap! Aren't you happy?"

The dog only answered with an unconvinced hum. Definitely not the way he used to greet his other self.

"What's wrong with you? Don't tell me now you didn't love playing Rhyme with me, you ungrateful jerk! You used to enjoy it a lot! That feeling when you smash your oponent... Aaah! It's _so_ great, almost as good as sex!"

Ren stayed silent and avoided his eyes, and Aoba felt some of his good mood slipping away. Determined not to allow a stupid robot dog to dampen his mood, he searched for his boyfriend with his eyes. He had met some mates from his Rhyme team, at the other side of the street, and was chattering with them. Well, more like listening to their ramblings, but at least he was politely nodding to the conversation. Aoba approached them and reached for the bottle they were passing around, eliciting some grudging glances from the Ruff Rabbit's members, which he proceeded to ignore. Noiz acknowledged him and threw an arm around his shoulder, putting him almost literally under his wing and hushing all the mute protests from his mates, who looked away and allowed Aoba to share their space and their drinks.

Aoba managed to be in the first match of the night when Usui appeared, all loud beat music and blinding lights. He walked forward until he was under the spotlight, enjoying the sudden attention of the public. A low murmur started to run through the rhymers at seeing him on the virtual platform, next to the tall figure of Usui. " _This. This is my place_ ", he thought with a smirk. Because when he was up there, with all the eyes focused on him, it didn't matter that he was useless at keeping even a crappy job, it didn't matter that he didn't manage to finish school, it didn't matter that he always ended disappointing everybody. When he was playing Rhyme, he was Sly Blue, the unbeatable, the winner, and nobody dared to call him a slut, or a drunkard, or rubbish, or any other epithet they usually threw at him since he reached puberty.

The crowd cheered his opponent when he was announced, and Aoba finally bothered to look at him. He was a young guy in his early twenties, tall and sturdy, more robust than athletic, and didn't seem aware of who Sly Blue was, according to the condescending glance he threw his way. Suddenly, the street and the crowd were gone, and they were in a bluish computer-like setting. Aoba's smirk grew wider when he noticed Ren's presence by his side: not the small pup, but his Rhyme persona, tall, muscular and sexy, with a dangerous look, someone he could be proud of. About twenty meters away, his opponent's allmate adopted a defence stance in front of the heavy guy. It was a blonde and cute girl, clad in a mini skirt and flashy armour that left some vital points uncovered.

"My allmate is going to mop the floor with your princess", Aoba said, chuckling.

"You know I can see your allmate defence points, right?" the guy grunted. "So you can stop bragging and shut your trap."

Aoba let his smirk turn slowly into a more fierce and predatory grin. Next to him, Ren asked:

"Aoba, orders!"

He decided a tentative attack would be enough to test his opponent skill, and ordered Ren accordingly. The cute warrior stopped it without breaking a sweat, but his attack, in turn, lacked in experience or strength. Aoba allowed Ren to throw a couple more of standard hits, while keeping an eye on his shield points. He was well aware of the fact that Ren was an old model, and although he had customised him as much as he could his defence wasn't that great. But it never mattered before, and it wasn't going to start being a problem then, was it? Because even before Ren's defence points went down to half the amount he had at the beginning, Aoba decided he had already given the public enough show for the night, and that it was time to wipe that guy and his little princess out of the Rhyme platform.

So the next time Ren barked "Aoba, orders!" he ignored him, raising instead his left hand towards his opponent. He could feel the energy flooding him and concentrating in one point, at the tip of his fingers, almost visible. He chuckled, feeling powerful and lightheaded.

 _No! Please, no! Stop!_

In front of him, his enemy gave his allmate orders to raise their shield. If only he could know how useless that was… A flick of his wrist, and some of the energy flied off and hit the guy's forehead, making him gasp. It wasn't painful, it wasn't yet, but it could be, it would be in a moment…

 _Stop this! We can't fuck it up now, please! Aoba!_

He ignored the voice, too high on adrenaline and power. How could he stop now? Now, when he was so close to destroy his opponent, take his mind and tear it off until it was just shreds. _Destroy. Smash. Knock down. Shatter into pieces_.

 _Please_. The voice was sobbing now, fraught with impotence. _Let me take over if you can't control it_.

No way, there was no way he was going to do that. A little dance of his fingertips, and his opponent fell to his knees, open-mouthed. Aoba could feel his mind, a swirl of dark and red and snippets of memories and images. He wanted to press on them and tread on those memories. Make it hurt. " _Does it hurt to lose your memories? Does it hurt to be trapped inside your head? Does it hurt to be garbage? Oh, yes, you are going to find out, mate_."

 _PLEASE!_ , the other Aoba shouted. _Sei, we need to go and rescue Sei, do you remember? Stop this! We haven't got the time, you are going to ruin it all for us!_

Stubborn, Aoba refused to obey. He grunted, wanting the voice to stop and leave him alone.

 _Ren, please, make him stop!_

" _As if he could hear you_ ", Aoba thought, snorting in disdain.

But then, to his surprise, Ren answered:

"I can't! You know I could never stop him, Aoba! I am so sorry!"

Aoba looked at him askance. Ren had his hands fisted, gritting his teeth in impotence, and his eyes glowered with rage. Rage directed at him, not at his opponent. The surprise made Aoba lower his left hand and the ball of bright power shrank.

"What the…", he muttered. "You can hear him!"

 _Can you hear me, Ren?! Please, make him stop, I know you can! I trust you, Ren_.

Ren approached Aoba, his stance threatening, and Aoba's heart jumped inside his chest. He wasn't afraid of Ren, he wasn't… or so he said to himself.

"Alright, alright!" He raised his right hand in an appeasing gesture. "I get it! Match cancelled!"

The blue and white world suddenly blurred and vanished quietly, making place to the well lit virtual platform and the darkness surrounding it. The faces of the crowd could be seen again, and they were silent in shock for a moment, but then everybody started to speak and boo, and Aoba's head began to throb. Painfully. Before someone thought of throwing him something or his dazzled opponent reacted, he climbed down the platform and walked away with wide strides, seeking the darkness. He didn't even think of picking Ren up; he and his stupid furry tiny form could be damned.

 _I'm sorry, I really am…_

"Shut up and leave me alone!"

He felt the prickling of unshed tears forming at his eyes. " _Fuck_ ", he thought, crouching with his back against a wall, covering his head with his hood and his arms.

 _You have no control over it_.

"I'm a fucking addict, that's what you are saying? What if? I don't fucking care!"

 _But we are to save Sei! Please, you must regain yourself!_

"You know what? You do stuff, I quit."

And he left his mind blank and climbed up to his refuge, his cell, his familiar bedroom where he could drop on his bed and hide his face on the warm pillow, and the whole world could be damned for all he cared. He was a failure, so be it.

"Aoba! Are you okay?"

Noiz' voice seemed to come from far, far away. Aoba heard his footsteps approaching and the rustle of his clothes when Noiz crouched by his side. He opened his eyes, and there he was, green eyes full of concern and Ren half on his arm, half on his lap. Aoba reached for his allmate, petting the dark fur of his head in reassuring little circles.

"Ren… You heard me, even when I was inside…"

"Aoba", Noiz insisted. "Your head must hurt, right?"

"Yeah…"

The pain was almost unbearable in his temples, forcing him to close his eyes again. Noiz came closer, surprisingly calm, and kissed his forehead, resting his chin right there.

"You lost control again… Just relax for a moment, okay? The pain will go down in a couple of minutes."

 _Again_. So Noiz was used to this. Aoba wondered how could Noiz cope with him, how had the boy coped with Aoba for so long, especially when he was like that. No surprise he didn't miss Rhyme that much.

"Noiz…" he managed to whisper. Trying to talk hurt. Damn, even breathing hurt! "Thank you. I'm so glad you are here…"

"You know, we can call the night off", Noiz suggested, tempting him. "Try it another day."

Aoba forced himself to open his eyes and breathe deeply. Noiz was right, the pain was slightly more bearable now.

"No, we are doing it tonight, I don't want to postpone it". He braced himself on Noiz' shoulder and stood up. Sighing, he took Ren from Noiz' arms and looked around. "Besides, Virus and Trip should be around."

Noiz started gazing around too, and soon he squeezed his hand. Aoba followed his boyfriend's glance until he could see them, the pair of blonde heads slightly apart from the main group of rhymers, as always. Hand in hand, Aoba and Noiz walked towards them.

"Ah, Aoba-san, there you are!" Virus greeted him with a smile. "I had something reserved for you, for after your match, but it seems this time there won't be any winner's prize. How disappointing!"

Aoba forced a smile into his features.

"Well, you know what they say, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose."

"But you were so close… It's a pity. But, of course, if you want your little prize anyway, we can talk about it…"

Noiz squeezed his hand again when he heard those words. Trip watched the conversation with a blank face, completely devoid of emotions or interest. Aoba squeezed Noiz' hand in turn to reassure him.

"I'm here for the other thing we talked about last night", he answered Virus.

"Oh, that". Virus pretended to remember just then. He took something small from inside one of his pockets and offered it to Aoba. "That will allow your little boyfriend and you to enter the Oval Tower."

"What's that?"

It was a small transparent plastic bag containing what seemed to be two pieces of foam, oblong and translucent white. Virus chuckled.

"That's Trip's and my fingerprints. It will work, we have tested them. But give us one hour before going there, alright?"

Aoba nodded, studying the small foams. And without further ado, Virus and Trip turned their backs on them and started walking away, leaving the back street.

"Aoba", Noiz asked, "are you sure, then? Are we going to enter the Oval Tower tonight?"

He closed his hand around the plastic bag, resolute.

"Yes. We are."

"But your other half is not okay, and this smells of trap."

Aoba took his hand.

"He will be, and we can do it, I can be strong for the two of us. If you are by my side."

Noiz leaned in and passed his arm around Aoba's shoulder, sighing.

"Always, Aoba. That, always."


	9. Chapter 9

They followed the route marked by Tae, going through empty dark streets northwards the old district. Neither Aoba nor Noiz had ever been in that part of the town, as it was mostly abandoned. There weren't shops or bars, and some of the buildings were run-down and only inhabited by rats. They finally arrived to the limits of the old town, where a metallic gate separated Midorijima from Platinum Jail. Some hundred meters in front of them, the crystal dome started to show above the short trees and bushes of the unkempt area.

"Aoba", Ren barked. "We have strayed a bit to the west. Follow the gate to the right and we should find the entrance in about two minutes".

"Ah, thanks, Ren!"

They followed the allmate indications until they found a half hidden entrance to a tunnel. Using their coils as flashlights, Noiz and Aoba crouched down a bit and entered the narrow space. It widened a little after a short while, and the two of them were able to walk side by side and standing up fully. Their steps echoed in the empty space of the tunnel. It made a slight curve, so they couldn't see the end, just the dampness stains of the concrete walls and the grey muddy puddles on the floor they were treading.

After a good ten minutes walking, they arrived to a door and, sharing a pointed look, Noiz pushed it open. Behind the door a huge white space welcomed them, making them blink due to the amount of light. As soon as they stepped inside the hall, a loud fanfare sounded, startling them.

"What the hell..."

Noiz couldn't finish his sentence before a panda robot appeared in front of them and started swaying his arms as a greeting.

"Welcome to Platinum Jail!" the panda exclaimed in a fake happy voice.

The robot started to list all the amenities they would find inside the facility. Aoba listened to him, too shocked to move or react, but Noiz walked past them and examined the five white doors on the next wall.

"We must enter one of these doors, that's clear", he said softly.

Aoba nodded and then tried to cut the panda ramblings.

"Excuse me, what door do we take? We are going to the Oval Tower."

"Of course, my dear guests! Every door leads to the Oval Tower! Please let me spin the roulette and see which one of our amusing areas is the right one for you!"

The panda walked to a side wall and activated a standing roulette with five colours in it. Aoba waited patiently until the thing stopped. The chosen colour was green.

"Oh, that's excellent! You will..."

"Right, fine, the green one", Noiz interrupted. "Which door, please?"

"This one, if you please. Now would you be so kind to approach your invitation?"

The two boys froze and shared a look. Invitation? They didn't have one. After a long hesitation, where the panda stood in silence, obviously waiting, Aoba took the plastic bag from his pocket and took the two little pieces of foam out.

"In fact... Well, we work in Platinum Jail, you know? I think... I think we can identify ourselves with these."

"This is the guest entrance. You should enter by the staff entrance, then."

"Can you just let us enter?" Aoba insisted. He didn't want to go back to the dark tunnel and lose hours searching for another entrance. "Please?"

"You don't need to be allowed entrance by me; I am here to greet our guests."

"Aoba", Noiz called. "Give me those things. I think this slot here next to the door is not only an invitation reader, but also a fingerprints reader. Let me try."

They approached the door designated to them by the panda and put the foams close to the reader. The white door automatically opened. Sighing loudly with relief, Aoba waved goodbye the panda and they crossed to the other side.

It was clear why the roulette had chosen green, as green was the dominant colour in the street they went through. Both sides of the street they could see arcades and technology stores, and if they were there under other circumstances Aoba knew that Noiz and he would certainly have a great time in the area. As things were right then, they only focused on the high tower in front of them, at the other side of the long main street. That must be the Oval Tower. It stood high and proud, well lit, glowing under the surprisingly starry sky, and it was obviously the centre of Platinum Jail and the place where the five colour zones converged. There were lots of people around, mostly in their twenties or early thirties, well dressed and with fancy haircuts, nothing to do with the average people in the old district. There was an air of wealth and self-conceit on those people that made Aoba feel out of place, and he was glad that everybody seemed to be too busy to mind about Noiz and him. Looking around, he couldn't see anybody who reminded him of police or private security, so they just kept walking until the street ended in an airy square, with a fountain and a wide empty area with some modern looking benches, and the Tower standing in front of them.

There was a glass double door facing the square, but two armed security guards were standing by its side, so Noiz pulled Aoba's hand towards one side of the building, until they left the square and people was scarcer. The tower was huge and round, and they followed its walls until they found a smaller door. Some meters in front of them, the main colour scheme changed to blue instead of green, and the street opened again to a new square.

"The double doors that open to squares are for the guests, that's obvious", Aoba said. "So we should try this one; it looks more like a staff door for me."

"Yeah. But it doesn't have any slot to read fingerprints, or at least I can't see it."

At approaching the door, a recorded female voice said:

"Please show your fingerprints to the door in order to enter the building. Please show your…"

"…Yes, yes, we get it! Aoba, pass me one!"

The two of them stood close to the door, showing their pieces of foam, until the voice answered:

"Identification finished. Please come in, mister Virus, mister Trip. Have a nice day."

And the door opened without a sound.

"Hey, we did it! We are in!" Aoba grinned, feeling like making a happy dance.

Noiz didn't say anything, but his frown relaxed at last. They stepped in the building, finding themselves on a wide white corridor that lead to a hall some meters to their right. The hall was meant for the guests who entered through the guarded glass doors, but there was a nice and empty elevator that seemed to be waiting for them, so they went inside as fast as they could, before any security guard or camera noticed them.

"What floor?" Noiz asked once inside.

"I don't know. Granny said the labs were at the higher floors, though."

"I bet the highest one is Toue's apartment", Noiz hummed. "Perhaps we should try the one before the highest, then."

Aoba nodded, and Noiz pushed the button, starting the ascension. The elevator started to move upwards, smooth and silent, and Aoba's knot in his stomach suddenly seemed to grip his guts harder at seeing Platinum Jail under his feet through the transparent front wall of the elevator, smaller and smaller as they kept going up.

"Aoba. Please relax, your blood pressure is starting to be a bit too high for your age and complexion."

As if agreeing with Ren's words, Aoba could feel his blood pumping loudly on his ears and temples. There was a forming headache there, too, but that was so recurrent in his life that he could ignore it, at least for now. Noiz squeezed his hand, and when Aoba looked up to his face his boyfriend offered him a little tight smile.

Aoba's coil beeped.

"Oh? A text?"

He opened the small floating screen to check on the incoming message, thinking of Tae or Virus and Trip. But no, the sender was unknown.

"Private sender?" Noiz asked, frowning, peering over his shoulder. "Looks like spam, even a virus."

Aoba opened it anyway, too stressed to think further. The message was an image, and at first he couldn't make out the meaning of it.

"It's a map", Noiz clarified for him. "And it looks like a map of the Oval Tower."

"You think so?"

Aoba turned the image to one side, still unable to see much. But if Noiz said so…

"Yes, look: that's the five main doors, each one in a hall, and those are the central elevators, where we are now."

"Oh, I see…"

"Scroll up."

Aoba did so. The map was more a blueprint than any other thing, too technical for Aoba, with lines of blue and red that didn't make sense to him, and he was glad once again to have Noiz by his side.

"Aoba", Ren intervened. "I think that's what we are looking for. Floor twenty-third."

The young man squinted and tried hard to decipher what the hell he was looking at. Noiz signalled with his index a square in said floor.

"Ren is right; it's there."

"How do you know?"

"Well, we are looking for something in the upper levels, something that it's not a lab and it's not a boss office or Toue's private lodgings. This is the only room that looks the right size and the right location for what we are looking for."

"My brother's room", Aoba whispered.

Noiz' words made sense, even if they were only by elimination. The bigger storage spaces were in the lower levels, and well marked, and almost everything up there had a clear mark for office, lab, security or storage. Everything but that room. It was a blind guess, but at least it made sense.

When the door finally opened, the corridor in front of them was white and empty, and it reminded Aoba of a sci-fi film because of the lack of angles or straight surfaces: as the building was more narrow on the upper floors, the corridor they were in ran in a circle around the inner rooms, so it was rounded all the way. The view from the small windows was stunning, with all the bright lights of Platinum Jail and the crystal dome above them. The rest of Midorijima was a pale shadow beyond the dome, barely visible at all. Aoba guessed that was the idea, forgetting about the old town while spending time in the luxurious facilities of Platinum Jail.

"Damn", Noiz cursed. "It's more difficult than I thought now that we are at the floor. All the doors are exactly the same and the round corridor doesn't help to find where we are. Ren, can you help us?"

The allmate was silent since they left the elevator. Aoba felt uncomfortable, too, and he realised Noiz was right and they had already made a full turn and were again in front of the elevator. Noiz studied the blueprint again, frowning.

"Are you alright, Ren?" Aoba asked, suddenly concerned.

"I… I don't know. I apologise for not being more useful".

Aoba was about to tell him not to worry, although it was really strange for the allmate to feel disoriented, but then he felt something. It was as if that something was pulling him into a direction.

 _He's there, don't you think?_

Aoba sighed in relief at hearing his other self, aware and on the surface again.

"Yes, I think so. Can you also feel him?"

Noiz raised his head from Aoba's coil and didn't need to ask who he was talking to.

"The third door on the right", Ren said suddenly.

The two boys stared at the robot dog, who jumped from his place inside of Aoba's bag and started running.

"Ren!"

Noiz and Aoba followed him. _He's right, though, that's the right door: Sei is calling us_ , he thought. He wondered how was it that Ren could feel the same pull he was experiencing, but he supposed that, after so many years linked to Aoba and sharing his mind in his Rhyme form, they were still more connected than he would have guessed.

"Aoba, be careful", Noiz asked before he could open the door.

He nodded, and pushed the door slightly. It was open. Ren stood up on his hind paws and applied all the strength of his little body to push the door completely open, before Aoba could react and stop him. The allmate ran inside without a further thought. Aoba and Noiz needed a moment to follow him, though, too shocked by the content of the room.

It was a middle-sized room, about four meters by six, big for a bedroom, small for a single space apartment. At first sight, though, it looked more like a nursery, because it was full of huge teddy bears and toys, every possible kind of them. But in one side of the room there was a single canopy bed, stuffed with cushions and more plushes. And right there, sitting in the middle of everything, on a thick carpet surrounded by puffs and cushions, there was a dark haired boy with a seemingly happy Ren on his lap.

Aoba looked at him and didn't even notice that he was walking forward inside the room, or that the door closed behind his heels, or that Noiz was muttering his name and trying to grab his arm. As soon as he saw the boy, pale as if the daylight was something remote and unknown to him, he got lost inside the black orbs that were gazing into him, and even though the boy didn't open his mouth, he could distinctly hear his voice inside of his mind:

[ _Welcome, dear brother_ ].

And then everything disappeared, the toys, the room, the Tower, Noiz' warm hand on his shoulder, and there was only those black eyes filling his world, only blackness and that soft voice.


	10. Chapter 10

The next time he was aware of his surroundings, all that Aoba could see was white: not the futuristic, elegant white of the Oval Tower, but a great void, a nothingness, that could only be described as "white" for lack of contrast with anything else. He noticed then that he had been floating in a blank space until seconds ago, but right then he could feel a floor under his feet, at least. He studied his hands, just to check he was still a human living and not a particle of matter. The contours were a little blurry when he moved them, but they were definitely still his hands.

"Aoba".

He turned around at hearing the voice, and he saw he wasn't alone. That white empty space had three people standing there, besides himself: his brother, Sei, his other self and Ren in his Rhyme human form. The other Aoba, so alike that he could be his twin, wore the same clothes as he, and only those bright golden eyes and the eternally present frown assured Aoba that he wasn't looking at his own reflection. He offered Aoba a toothy grin at seeing him and came closer.

"Ha! It's so strange to be in the same place as you!"

Aoba nodded, smiling back. _It's true_ , he thought. _I've become really used to his presence, but we have never been in the same place with two physical bodies_. Sei watched them with a little smile dancing on his lips.

"Where are we?" Aoba asked him. "Have you used your power on us?"

Sei's smile turned bolder, but he looked away, and Aoba remembered his brother hadn't had the chance to meet many people in his life, apart from the lab assistants or his caretakers, like Virus and Trip, so he assumed Sei wouldn't have many social skills. That thought alone made his heart clench; he wanted so badly to take Sei to the world that was waiting outside Platinum Jail, make up for the lost time...

"But then, why is he also here?" the other Aoba scoffed, gesturing Ren with his chin.

Ren's reaction was only fisting his hands, and Aoba hurried to approach him. He took his right fist and opened his fingers with great care, linking his own hand with Ren's with a fond gaze, prompting a surprised look from the allmate. It was strange to see him with that human form instead of his lovely pup shape, but Aoba was surprised to notice that a part of him accepted Ren like that at once, without hesitation: that was Ren as much as the dog form, and it was alright. Hence, he didn't want to see that hurt face on him.

"You haven't realised yet, I see..." Sei said with a hint of amusement in his voice. "Ren, why don't you tell them yourself?"

Ren opened his mouth to speak, but he flinched and finally shook his head. Aoba squeezed his hand, trying to reassure him to say whatever Sei and he had to tell them, but his counterpart sneered.

"But I bet you know it already, isn't it?" Sei asked, insistent but kind.

Ren nodded.

"I just remembered a short while ago", he said in his raspy voice.

"What is it, Ren?" Aoba asked him. "You have been acting weird for months. Is it related to that?"

Ren looked at Aoba's eyes and nodded again, and Aoba saw tears on the edge of his eyes, threatening to fall.

"I'm so sorry, Aoba. I've been so useless."

"What are you talking about?" the other Aoba said, nervous. "And hey, you could apologise to me, too, you know?"

But Ren ignored him, as he had been doing since he came back, and the blue haired boy cursed and turned his back to them, pulling his hood over his head until it almost covered his eyes.

"I see you have some things to sort out, dear brother..." Sei sighed and shook his head, but he was calm and his face had an air of fondness and serenity that made Aoba smile, feeling a rush of love and instant affinity for him. Was that, what people always felt towards their siblings? "You are my brother, Aoba... The three of you, as three different consciences, but just one person."

The other Aoba snapped his head back to Ren.

"What?! Ren is the third one, the one who was with us when we were kids?"

Ren's gaze was fixed on the floor, shyly, and Aoba almost let his hand go, astonished.

"Ren? It's that true?"

"I... I didn't know", he answered at last.

"But I found your allmate body in the garbage", the other Aoba explained. "I worked on your broken body for weeks, until I succeed and you started up... How can you be an allmate and at the same time a part of us? Why aren't you inside of our mind?"

"I... I don't know how I did it... You had taken over, and you didn't listen to me any more..."

"Me?" the other Aoba asked, appalled.

Ren nodded.

"Please don't blame him", Sei intervened. "Splitting your mind in three was your coping mechanism, and with time each conscience developed a different personality. Ren was your restraint, the part of you who tried to stop any unreasonable urge that could hurt you."

"A fucking Jiminy Cricket", the golden eyed boy scowled. "And what was I supposed to be? The wrecked one?"

His voice broke at the end of the sentence, and Aoba felt a painful pinch on his heart. He reached for his hand, without letting go of Ren, and the other boy let him took it, without gripping back, but Aoba hoped he was still giving him a bit of comfort.

"You are the part of Aoba who acts out your desires", Sei explained. "I had the chance to observe you a lot in the Rhyme playgrounds, Aoba, since Usui is my counterpart; not as individually strong as you three are, but still a part of me. My eyes and my ears in the outside world, you could say. And you always looked so lost, Aoba... Strong and lively, raw, even, but always lonely and a tad sad. I'm glad now you have Noiz by your side, he's been a really good influence on you."

The blue haired boy nodded, with a lump in his throat that didn't allow him to reply.

"And me?" Aoba asked, after a long thoughtful silence.

"You are the reasonable part of the three. The one who is more abled to function on its own, but... don't you feel something missing when you are all alone?"

Aoba thought about it. Did he? It was true that he had always felt incomplete, but he assumed everybody felt that way, and meeting Noiz had alleviated that feeling a great deal. Still. How would he had felt if he didn't have Ren by his side the whole time? Shuddering, he realised the truth in Sei's words. _Lost, I would feel completely lost without Ren_ , he thought. _And I supose that's why having my other self always on the surface these last months has been reassuring, in spite of how annoying he is._

"Well, I'm glad the three of us are here to meet you", he said at last, smiling. "We are going to take you out of here, Sei. Granny is waiting for you."

A fight of emotions took place on Sei's features: his black eyes shone, pleased, but then sadness and doubt crossed his face and in the end he looked again at the floor with a little crooked smile.

"I have been waiting for you all of my life, Aoba, but I regret to say it's too late for me. My body and my mind are exhausted, worn out for good. I have divided my conscience into so many little parts that there's barely anything left."

"Don't say that..." Aoba asked, alarmed. "Granny will fix you, she's a doctor. She can design special drugs that will help you to recover your mind."

"Yeah, like she helped us..." his other self scoffed.

"She helped me to recover! It was all she could do at that situation, and it worked! And she will help you too, Sei. Please, just don't throw in the towel yet."

"We will help you too, Sei", Ren added. "The three of us."

He let his eyes rest on the two Aobas, his left hand still linked to the right one of the Aoba he cared the most. The other one was slightly apart, but one of his hands was still trapped by Aoba. Grudgingly, Ren stepped forward and took his other hand, closing the circle. Sei smiled fondly at them, although his was still a sad and timid smile.

"Will you? Would the three of you have the will of working as a whole being again?"

They turned to look at Sei, perplexed.

"What do you mean?", the other Aoba asked.

"I mean, will you be strong enough to become a single mind again?"

"Can you do that?", Aoba frowned.

Sei nodded.

"I think I can... but only if the three of you are willing."

They stared at the other two members of the circle, uncertain.

"Being just one mind..." Aoba mumbled. "It should be the right option. But it will feel lonely. I'm used to have you both by my side."

The other Aoba nodded, solemn.

"If there isn't the chance of having our body only to myself, I guess this is the best second option", he said, softly. "I can put up with you."

"Ren", Aoba whispered. "What about you?"

The former allmate looked thoroughly confused. He watched the other two, serious, but his jaw was trembling.

"I... I don't know, Aoba."

"You have been inside that allmate for so long..." Aoba said. "It must be difficult, isn't it? Can you think of us as a whole?"

Ren stayed silent for a while, obviously feeling the weight of the three pairs of eyes upon him, but he finally looked at Aoba and answered:

"I want to be a whole with you. I have never wished anything else."

"But there's also me, is that so?" the other young man asked with a derisive laugh.

"You have heard Sei", Aoba hurried to provide. "We were together when we were children, so we can come back to that. We can do it. Just..." He turned to look at his golden-eyed other self. "No more self-destruction. No more using our power to win in Rhyme and destroy innocent people. No more getting plastered or high and hurting Noiz." The other boy looked unbearably sad and nodded in agreement, and Aoba knew it had been the mention of Noiz' name what had decided him. He turned towards Ren next. "And you must accept him. He is Aoba as well: his wishes count."

Reluctantly, Ren finally nodded. Grining widely, Aoba looked back at Sei. They were ready.

The void around them started to turn black in the edges of Aoba's visual field. He focused on Sei's black eyes and his gentle smile, until all he could see were those pits of darkness and nothing else.

He came back to his senses to Noiz' concerned eyes on him and a hand shaking his shoulder with some strenght.

"Aoba! Finally!" Noiz exclaimed, clearly relieved.

Aoba looked around. He was still in his brother's room, lying on the floor.

"We don't have time to spare", a different voice said. "Trip is holding the staff at the other side of this floor, but I doubt they will be convinced much more. I say they will be here in a couple of minutes, so we ought to dash."

 _Virus_ , he thought, closing his eyes again. _Of course_.

The spectacled guy was watching them with concern, while he seemed to be checking Sei's vitals. The boy was unconscious, lying sideways on top of a layer of cushions and plushes. His concern seemed legit, and Aoba wondered if spending years taking care of Sei had prompted genuine fond feelings in Virus. Noiz helped him to his feet and he hurried to Sei's side.

"Noiz-san, please help me to carry him", Virus asked, gesturing towards Sei.

The boy did it, pulling one of Sei's arms around his shoulder at first, but it was clear that Sei wasn't going to wake up inmediately and he would be a dead weight during all their journey out of Platinum Jail. So Noiz scooped up his legs and picked him up bridal style. Aoba made sure Sei's head didn't hang backwards and his weight was well balanced on Noiz' arms and chest.

A loud alarm started going off. Aoba and Noiz, who were about to go out the room, froze on the spot.

"They are already here! I'm sorry, Aoba-san, Trip and I have done our best, but our boss has cameras everywhere and it's obvious your presence has been detected... We thought you would have a little more time, in fact, but it seems we miscalculated."

"What can we do now?" Noiz said in his calm voice.

"You carry Sei-san out of the building using the elevator, and Aoba-san and I will distract the security guards to buy you a bit of time."

Aoba gave a light punch to his left hand, showing he was ready to "distract" the guards with kicks and teeth if necessary.

"All right" Noiz nodded.

Virus opened the door and they ran in opposite directions: Noiz carried Sei to the elevator, going in the same direction they had come before, to their left, while Aoba and Virus ran to their right, following the corridor and turning a couple of times without finding any guard. Aoba slowed down, puzzled, and turned his head to ask Virus if he was sure the guards were searching for them on that floor, just in time to meet a wet cloth over his mouth.

"Ah, Trip, here you are! Help me here, will you?"

Virus words were the last thing Aoba heard before blacking out, and as the floor went up to meet him and everything turned a blur of light colours again, the young man thought: _Not again_!


	11. Chapter 11

A faint dizziness and some far away conversation were the first things his abused mind noticed the moment Aoba came back to his senses. That kind of dizziness, set in a tight knot in the pitch of his stomach and going up his throat, slowly but firmly, he could recognise: it was the feeling he always associated with riding a car, poorly used as he was to vehicles, as a perk of having spent almost all of his life in Midorijima. With the realisation that he was indeed in a car, all of the events of the evening came back to him all of a sudden, and the fleeting hope that the voices would belong to Noiz and granny vanished at once.

"Hey, I think he's awake".

That was Trip's voice. _Of course_ , Aoba thought with a grimace. Then, with a start, he thought of Sei and Noiz. Had them escaped safe and sound from Platinum Jail? He managed to open his eyes, but it was dark and he wasn't able to see anything at first. His tongue had turned into a piece of sandpaper and he could feel the bitter taste of sickness reaching the back of his throat. He groaned, still searching around in the darkness.

Then there was a manly chuckle, and someone turned towards him from the front seat, entering his vision field. It was Virus, no surprise there.

"Welcome back, Aoba-San. Would you like some water? Chloroform derivatives tend to leave the mouth terribly dry, you know?"

A plastic bottle was pressed against Aoba's hand, and he took it blindly. When he raised it to his mouth was when he noticed the ties on his wrists.

Virus chuckled again, amused.

"I'm sorry, Aoba-san, but we must ensure you follow us in a well behaved way… Drink your water, please. But don't think of using your voice against us again."

That caught Aoba by surprise, and froze with the plastic bottle already touching his lips. Virus smirked naughtily, enjoying immensely the situation.

"Yes, Aoba-san… Remember we have been by Sei-san's side for years; we surely know more about how Scrap works than yourself. And we have been watching you since we met you, we can notice all the different movements of your throat, so we will know beforehand if you try something."

"Then…" Aoba whispered in a raspy voice, "last night…"

"Ah, well, last night you caught us off guard, so we were partially affected". Virus shrugged like it was nothing. "Perhaps we exaggerated the effect, just a bit, eh, Trip?" His mate grunted, focussed on driving, although Aoba couldn't make their surroundings at all. "But don't worry: we are keeping our word. We promised that we would help you free Sei-san, and that's exactly what we have done. Your little boyfriend and Sei-san escaped from the Oval Tower and Platinum Jail without a problem. Trip and I just thought about adding a little something for us in exchange, a reward you could say. After all, Trip and I have worked hard since we were kids, haven't we?"

"Oh, yes", Trip hummed.

"See? We have done a lot for Toue-san, we have taken care of Sei-san besides of our regular work, and we have even helped you, Aoba-san, with your little problem of getting too carried away in Rhyme… So we felt we deserved a long vacation and a compensation for all our hard work. Hence, we have done as you asked from us, but decided to exchange one brother for the other." Aoba widened his eyes in horror at those words. Virus offered him an almost sweet smile. "Don't worry, we are not going to bring you to Toue-san; we are doing this only for ourselves. Now relax, please, we have a long journey in front of us. Come back to sleep, if you can."

And he turned ahead again, leaving Aoba confused and terrified.

Once both his captors seemed focused on the road, Aoba let his eyes wander around. His vision was getting used to the dim light, and now he could make out his surroundings much better than some minutes ago, when he awoke. The upholstery was made of leather, in a rich burgundy, cool and soft to the touch. The rear windows were tinted black, so he could only have a glimpse of passing city lights and barely more. But, even though he couldn't recognize the streets they were crossing, he was sure now that they were heading towards the small island's airport. Locals and tourists usually came and went by boat, but everybody was aware of the existence of Toue's private airport, which he lent sometimes to his most exclusive guests. Aoba guessed that, being "in the inner circle" as they claimed, Virus and Trip had managed to achieve access to one of Toue's airplanes.

When he was about to despair, Aoba suddenly noticed something furry on the floor, next to his feet, and his heart leaped in joy. Ren! It was Ren! His mind ran through all the functions of the allmate, some of them vitally important right then. If only he could reach Ren and activate him...

Keeping an eye on Virus, he started to lean sideways onto the leather seat, trying to low his tied hands enough to reach his allmate. As soon as he touched his fur, he gripped him and pulled him up onto his lap, hiding him more or less under his forearms and hands when Virus turned a suspicious eye to him. He wouldn't be able to see much of Aoba in the semi darkness of the car at night, but he had obviously heard the rustling of clothes.

"Stop struggling, Aoba-san; I can assure you your ties are neatly done and won't give in. I have done them myself. Try to sleep again, I pray."

And he turned towards the road again. _Good_ , Aoba thought. He slipped his hand against the furry belly of his allmate, looking blindly for Ren's mechanism. He opened the lid and pressed what he was ninety per cent sure that was the 'on' button.

"Warf! Warf!"

The dry barks surprised the three of them. Even the always stoic Trip turned to look in disbelief at the small barking dog.

 _Ren._ Aoba was speechless, watching the tiny form of this allmate, who currently acted and sounded as... an allmate. _Ren?_

"Oh, for God's sake, Aoba-san! Here, I'll take your robot dog. We have been kind enough to leave your mascot with you to keep you company, don't make me dump it on the kerb now! I'll give it back to you when we arrive to our destination. Now behave!"

Aoba was too shocked to react at Ren being taken from him. Virus' words danced in his mind for a moment. _His robot dog_. That's what it was right now, that wasn't Ren at all. Ren wouldn't even be able to pretend being like that; if he was there, inside the allmate, he would have kept silence to help Aoba, perhaps. But barking? He hadn't heard him bark, never, not once.

 _If he was there_. Aoba's mind ran back to what Sei had said, perhaps an hour or two before. He said the three of them would be back to share his body, Ren too. But where was Ren? He couldn't sense the other Aoba, either. Had they retired somewhere safe without him? Precisely then, when he needed them the most?

Aoba had never felt this lonely. He was so used to have Ren always by his side, loyal and reliable; and then Noiz arrived, lovely Noiz with his kindness and his understanding and all his love... Even the other Aoba's presence had become welcomed and friendly, despite his peevishness. He knew he could always count with Tae and his other friends, but those three were different, and Sei had clarified him why: Ren and the other Aoba were himself, and well, Noiz was Noiz, he was his heart and the one he would always follow. The fact that he couldn't reach any of them was filling him with despair.

 _Calm down_ , he thought, _and try to focus. What did Sei say? He didn't say Ren and my other self were going to share my body; he said the three of us would be one again. One... mind? The three of us are now inside my mind?_ That was what he understood in that moment, in that place inside of Sei's mind, but right then he was so desperate to hear Ren and the other Aoba that a part of him refused to believe it. It simply couldn't be. He needed them outside, wherever it was, but in a place where he could talk to them and ask them what to do. But if Sei's deed had worked, as it seemed given that Ren apparently wasn't inside the allmate's body any more... Then...

 _It means I am now the three of us?,_ he thought, with a hint of panic. _I am Ren, the other Aoba and myself?_

He realised he was so tense that he was digging his nails in the palm of his hands, and opened his fists before they bled. He sighed, as silently as he could, and closed his eyes, trying to make the car and Virus and Trip vanish from his mind. He needed to focus and think.

He wasn't good at thinking. No, that wasn't true: a part of him wasn't good at thinking, but now he had three parts, right? Ren was the most resourceful of the three, so what would Ren do in that circumstance?

He would use his allmate circuits to access Noiz or Tae, for example. But he was now inside of Aoba's body, so he didn't have access to a GPS; that gadget was in his mechanical body, the one he didn't own any more... If he couldn't use his body, he still had his mind.

Snippets of conversation came back to Aoba all of a sudden. _"He is Usui, and Usui is him". "Usui is my counterpart." "He is my eyes and my ears in the outside world."_ Could that mean that Usui was to Sei like Ren was to Aoba? A part of Sei's consciousness? And, perhaps, also an allmate, given that Usui was used as a part of Rhyme. It was all a conjecture, but the possibility was there.

A ray of hope arose in Aoba's heart. Because if a part of Sei shared that kind of connection with the outside world, then it was possible to Ren to communicate with him. After all, Ren's consciousness was still partly a fleeting presence, someone who wasn't completely Aoba but also not an allmate any more, so they could use that feature of Ren to reach Usui, and through him Sei.

Keeping his eyes closed, Aoba concentrated as hard as he could. He focused on the car, and tried to fix an image into his mind: an airport. He concentrated until he felt so mentally exhausted that he thought he was going to throw up (again, that damned car sickness wasn't helping). After a long while, he felt his five senses fading little by little until he fainted.

It was a shout what awakened him that time.

He raised his head, startled, and noticed a trickle of saliva wetting his chin. He wiped it as well as he could against his shoulder, while the racket outside the car grew louder. Trip cursed loudly and started the car again; Aoba hadn't realised they had stopped. Trip started to turn the car back, but he suddenly came to a screeching halt, and Virus opened his door. Aoba recognised some of the voices outside, astonished. He would swear he had heard Koujaku!

Virus opened the door by Aoba's side and grabbed his tied wrists, trying to pull him out.

"Aoba!"

 _Noiz! That's Noiz!_ He opened his mouth to call him aloud, but Virus covered his mouth with his big hand. Aoba trashed and kicked at seeing himself being dragged across the concrete of an empty parking lot. He sank his heels firmly on the ground until Virus cursed, unable to move him any further. Trip suddenly arrived to their side, shooting a gun against their pursuers, he saw Virus struggling to keep on dragging Aoba and, without a word, passed the gun to his mate and reached for Aoba's legs. The young man was suddenly falling onwards and left breathless due to a punch to his gut, and before his body touched the ground two powerful arms had lifted him into the air and onto Trip's shoulder, where he was thrown like a potato sack. Black with rage, Aoba used his linked hands as a hammer against Trip's nape and managed to slither down until he could ground a good kick, aimed to Trip's family jewels. He succeeded partly; the bigger guy didn't drop him, as he wished, but at least he had to slow down a bit, cursing and trying to readjust his load.

"Noiz!", he took the chance to yell, "I'm here!"

"Virus, he should leave him", Trip said to his partner, his voice as calm as ever. "He's slowing us down and we might get caught."

"What are you saying?" Virus grunted. "The plane is just there. Once we are inside, there's no way they can stop us. Move faster!"

Without a complain, Trip started to jog. Aoba saw some hangars ahead of them, their obvious destination. He couldn't see Virus, but the shots and shouts kept reaching his ears.

A wide red door was kicked open, and Aoba saw himself inside a medium-sized hangar, with a small plane, not bigger than a van, parked there. There was a man in a blue uniform already jumping down the pilot door and opening the passengers one. He didn't seem surprised at all at the sight of Aoba being carried upside down or the gun currently in Trip's hand.

"Hurry up, they are on our heels!" Trip shouted.

The man nodded and left the ship's door opened, coming back to his place at once. _He must be starting up the plane_ , Aoba thought, horrified. _Once I'm inside, everything is lost!_

Virus ran to bar the door they had entered, and then to the other side of the hangar to open the huge door facing the airstrips. Meanwhile, Trip approached the plane with Aoba on his shoulder. He waited until they reached the plane door to wriggle and aim a kick to Trip's jaw. This time he succeeded: Trip staggered backwards, with clumsy movements not unlike the ones of a drunk, and Aoba didn't miss a bit and started running towards the door.

Virus cried out at his back, and he knew Trip would react in barely a moment, but Aoba needed to reach the door and unbolt it; it was just a moment, he most surely had that moment…

Someone pulled him by his pony tail, making him gasp in pain and surprise, and dragged him back until he fell on his ass on the hand and dusty concrete floor.

"Nice try, Aoba". Trip voice's was a bit shaky, that was something.

But he was again held down, no matter how hard he struggled and tried to kick. Another punch to his temple made his vision go blurry and his ears ring, and he felt the metallic tang of blood inside his mouth.

A loud bump against the red door echoed on the almost empty hangar.

"Noiz! I'm here!", he managed to yell before another punch on his stomach made him groan, breathless.

"What are you doing!" Virus shouted, enraged. It was the first time Aoba heard him having lost his cool demeanour. "Put him inside the ship, now!"

"They are surrounding us, Virus… Let's go, leave him."

"There's no way I'm leaving without Aoba-san, so you better hurry up!"

Trip pulled Aoba by under his armpits, while Virus held his legs down and together to stop his further kicking. He felt completely impotent, and the motor of the plane was roaring deafeningly, ready to depart.

All of a sudden, a group of young men appeared at the other side of the hangar, blocking the airstrip door. Aoba couldn't recognize any of the faces, but two of them were holding guns and the rest had baseball bats and sticks.

"Aoba!"

 _Koujaku!_ Aoba had no idea of how his childhood friend had arrived there, but he couldn't be gladder of seeing him.

The bunch of men yelled and threw themselves on top of Virus and Trip, who dropped Aoba and tried to counterattack their opponents. But then another group of young men appeared at the door, and it was a larger number now, so in the end the two kidnappers shared a pointed glance and ran inside the plane, closing the door in a snap, almost crushing some fingers in the deed. Aoba recognised some of the guys now: they were Ruff Rabbit members, or acquaintances from the Black Needle. So it meant that…

Suddenly there were two strong hands around his torso and he was pulled on his feet again, and his dizzy head registered Koujaku's face in front of him, watching him with a grave expression.

"Aoba…", his friend muttered. "You look so battered…"

"I'm alright", he managed to reply, not very convincingly.

The pilot was trying to pass the plane through the bunch of people hanging from the plane doors and wings and blocking the exit, but in the end he just stopped the motor and went out his door with his hands up. Aoba barely registered all of this, too focused on the two people who were trying to enter the hangar through the small crowd.

"Noiz! Mizuki!" he shouted, relieved.

He ran towards them and bumped against Noiz' chest, leaving the boy breathless and almost making him fall backwards. By his side, Mizuki chuckled and ruffled his hair. He hid his face on Noiz' neck, sniffing his boyfriend's familiar scent, and felt how Noiz embraced him tightly.

"You are alright…", the boy whispered on his ear.

"I wouldn't say 'alright', he's kinda messy", Mizuki objected.

"I don't mind, he's alright", Noiz said. "He will be fine, won't you, Aoba?"

He nodded against Noiz' neck, not wanting to get a single inch apart from him.

"I thought I had lost you again…"

Noiz' voice was cracked, and Aoba felt like crying. He closed his eyes tightly.

"I promised it wouldn't happen", he muttered in a tiny voice. "I will never leave you."

And all the sounds around them vanished from his focus; they weren't important. The plane vanished, and Virus and Trip and the group of people who were shouting them to give up. All that mattered were his friends, Koujaku and Mizuki and especially Noiz. He still didn't know how they had managed to find him, but the explanations could wait for later. At that very moment, he was too busy being glad for being safe; he, and his brother Sei as well.


	12. Chapter 12

The rattle of pans and pots was incessant since the first hours of morning. Aoba tagged his grandmother across the kitchen, barely avoiding stepping on her more than once, and tried to make himself useful. Tae kept barking orders but, being such a nerve as she was, Aoba found her doing the tasks herself before he had the chance to follow her instructions. It was frustrating, and he envied Noiz for being allowed to go to the shops to get Tae's last minute thoughts for the Christmas lunch.

Because yes, the days before they didn't have the time to spare a thought to the festivities, but last night was definitely Christmas Eve, and although they didn't celebrate it much in Japan, the Seragaki household had already decided to host a Christmas lunch with some friends, especially Tae's, who were merely happy to meet Aoba and his boyfriend now that they were living abroad. The occasion would be doubly special, with the introduction of a new member of the family, but of course it was still a surprise for everybody.

And, as always, Tae hid her nervousness and joy preparing lots of food; that wasn't news to Aoba.

"You don't need to knead the dough, granny, I have already done it!"

Tae ignored him with a grunt and kept on kneading. Aoba sighed, feeling rather useless.

"If you are going to keep sighing and being on my way", Tae said at last, "perhaps you should leave the kitchen to me."

"But I want to help!"

"Then go and check on Sei, would you?"

Aoba couldn't refuse. In fact, he was glad to have any kind of excuse to go and sit with his brother. So he took his apron off and stepped out of the kitchen.

Sei was lying on the couch in the living room. The television was on, but he was obviously spacing out, not really following the program. Aoba smiled at him and sat on a chair by his side, and Sei smiled back weakly as soon as he noticed his brother's presence.

"Your brain will rot if you watch that kind of programs", Aoba commented with a grin.

Surprised, Sei turned his focus towards the tv, where a bunch of people were discussing about some trifle topic in a foul language; it was some kind of reality show. Sei's smile turned wider and more felt and turned the tv off with the remote.

"So, how are you feeling?"

"For the fifth time this morning, Aoba… I'm fine. Granny says my only visible problem is my lack of muscular tone, so after some rehabilitation I will be alright and able to lead a normal life… But we are going to the clinic tomorrow for a whole checkup, so we'll see. For now, I just feel exhausted."

"I know, I just…" Unable to put into words what he wanted to say, Aoba simply smiled and gripped his brother's hand. "Explain me what did happen last night."

Sei furrowed his frown, thinking hard.

"Well, when I came back to my senses, Noiz was carrying me across the streets of Platinum Jail; by the time we arrived here he was half mad with concern because there was no trace of you… He phoned Mizuki and Koujaku and they came really fast. We explained them the whole situation, even about your different consciousnesses, and then they contacted their mates and everybody started to look for you."

"But you got my message, right?"

"Yes… At a given moment I saw you in a car, and heading to the airport". He smiled sweetly at Aoba. "You did well."

"Thank god… It was a blind guess, I couldn't know if it would work or not."

Noiz, Mizuki, Koujaku and he had arrived home with the first lights of morning, and his friends had given him a hurried and confused version of the facts. They didn't know how Sei had guessed where they had taken Aoba, but they had trusted him all the same.

"I'm glad it worked". Sei glanced down, looking suddenly tired. "I'm… I'm trying to call back and absorb again all the parts of my consciousness that are spread across the island, but it's not easy. A good amount of them are damaged." Aoba's grip on his hand turned tighter. He couldn't imagine at all how would it feel to have not three, but a lot of different parts of him running loose. "Usui is still out there, she will be the last one I call back." He turned to look at Aoba's eyes, and his gaze was serious but strong, without a hint of weakness in it. "You know once I call Usui back, the last of Toue's plans will be ruined. He has been working for some years on replicating the power of my eyes and your voice, but he still hasn't succeeded: the project is at its half at best."

"Do you mean… You will be in danger then?"

Aoba and granny had discussed about that.

"I'll be alright", Sei answered shaking his head. "Now that I know what's outside the Oval Tower, I don't want to go back, ever. And I assure you, there's no way he can take me back if I refuse. He's not immune to my power."

"What about Virus and Trip? I know they are under arrest, but Toue is very powerful in the island and can free them if he wants…"

"Why would he? They left me escape and betrayed him."

"But surely he has more men who had been prepared to face our power like them."

"In fact, he hasn't. And even if he sends men after me… Now I'm not alone, Aoba." He offered his brother a confident smile. "After seeing how your friends and the friends of your friends concern about you and are ready to protect you, I feel much better. I want to step into the world and make friends, too. I want to have people to protect, and who would protect me as well if the situation arises." A shadow crossed his delicate features and he closed his eyes for a moment. "But right now I'm still weak and I feel very, very tired, sorry."

"I'll let you rest, then."

With his black eyes closed, Sei looked very young, Aoba reflected. Almost a pale porcelain doll. He fisted his hands and frowned. _I know you are strong and powerful inside, brother,_ he thought, _but I will protect you all the same against every evil that might threaten you. That, I swear._

Some hours later, the guests started to arrive. The big kitchen looked lovely, with colourful tablecloths and flower arrangements (brought by Koujaku, surprisingly), and plates and more plates of different kinds of food. Just the smell of it from the next room made everybody's mouth water. Aoba and Noiz had brought every chair in the house, but still some people had to take their plate to the living room and sit on the couch. To Tae's relief, nobody seemed to mind. Everybody was too happy with the food and drinks, and the chance to see Aoba again and meet Sei, to be fussy about the lunch arrangements. A lot of them were neighbours and Tae's friends from the clinic where she used to work and still lend a hand from time to time, but of course Koujaku and Mizuki were also there. They said some of their friends, the ones who had helped them the previous night, would surely come later to have a drink and see Aoba and Sei, and at hearing that Tae stood up and started to prepare more plates of snacks. Her friends laughed and pulled her back to the table, shaking their heads.

The lunch went pretty well, although Tae and Aoba couldn't almost sit down, too busy attending their guests, retiring plates and serving more food and drinks. But the mood was cheerful, and when Tae's friends started to leave it was a group of youths who appeared at the door, as promised, so the string of people coming and going inside the house didn't stop for hours. Soon, Tae and some of her closer friends started clearing the table and making the wash up, while chatting and drinking a last glass of wine. The Christmas lunch-turned-party moved to the living room, where half the regulars of the Black Needle were having drinks and starting to dance.

Mizuki took the chance of finding Aoba on his own for a moment to approach him. They really hadn't had a moment to talk since the events of the previous night, and Aoba knew perfectly well how curious his friend might be. The way the tattooist looked at him, clearly unsure of what to say, made it very clear.

"Alright, spit it already!" he exclaimed. "What is it?"

"Ah… You know, Noiz explained us some weird things last night…"

"Are you wondering if they are true or not?" Aoba asked raising an eyebrow.

"No, not that… I know they must be true. Why would he come up with all that?"

"Then?"

"Well… it's a bit too much to stomach. So… who am I talking to, right now? Are you the old one, or the new one?"

Aoba couldn't help to laugh.

"Is it that, what is bothering you? I'm just myself, Aoba, the old and the new one put all together."

Mizuki stared in disbelief. Then he smirked and shook his head.

"You are really something, dude. So… okay, I get that you remember everything now?"

Aoba thought for a moment. Everything had happened so fast that he still hadn't got any time to digest the events and make a little of introspection. But he found that yes, he could remember now everything that happened when he was his older self. He even remembered quite a lot of when he was a child. Perhaps Ren was the one who kept those childhood memories for the three of them, and now it was like finishing a puzzle and finding out how every piece matched and complemented the others.

"Yes. I remember how we met, for instance."

Mizuki chuckled.

"I'm glad! It was rather ridiculous, now that I think of it."

"Yeah, it was! What a pair of punks we were!"

"Hahaha! I had never stepped on that supermarket again, it would be too embarrassing."

"Same here!"

Koujaku came closer and pulled Aoba's arm.

"Come and dance with us, Aoba! Come on, what are you doing sitting there; even your brother is dancing!"

"Oh, is he?"

Well, Sei was trying, at least. Some guys were teaching him how to move to the rhythm of music. It was obvious he never had the chance to dance before, and Aoba ran to his side and started showing him how to do it properly, making the other boys move over. Noiz came and sat down on the empty space left by Aoba on the couch, and Mizuki and he watched with amusement Sei's clumsy dance moves. He looked a bit like a duckling. By his side, Aoba looked way more graceful, directing his brother while putting his bangs out of his face.

"Look at him", Noiz muttered with a wide grin, pointing Aoba with his drink. "He's so sexy!"

Mizuki laughed heartily and patted Noiz' back.

"You are drunk, mate!"

Indeed, Noiz had been drinking quite a lot, way more that was usual in him, but since they were at a party everyone found it just fine.

"I want to fuck him right now", he said then with his glowing eyes fixed on his boyfriend.

"Oh-oh, too much information, mate!" Mizuki raised his two hands in a signal to stop.

Around them, some of their friends who had heard them laughed discreetly. Ignoring Mizuki, Noiz kept talking, his focus only on Aoba, as if he was the only thing that existed in the whole world.

"I want to marry him, and take him on honeymoon to one of those hotels in the Polynesia where the rooms are wooden huts completely surrounded by water, and then make love to him there, surrounded by the ocean, on a bed scattered with rose petals."

Silence had spread across the room while Noiz spoke, shocked by his words, and in the end even Aoba was listening to him, mouth half open in astonishment.

"…And I want to be with him", Noiz continued, ignoring the surprised looks around him, "until we are no longer young or good looking, and then beyond that, until the end". Eyes still set on Aoba, he then stood up and came closer to him. The young man played nervously with the ends of his ponytail until Noiz was right in front of him and reached for his hands. "Aoba, last Christmas you made it special for me, and I told you this year it would be my turn to surprise you". He put his left hand inside his trousers' pocket and took a small box out of it. Their guests gasped. Aoba just glanced to the box and then up to Noiz' face again, too shocked to react. Noiz put the box inside of Aoba's palm and waited until his boyfriend dared to open it with trembling hands. As they all expected by then, inside the box there was a ring, a simple golden band with letters carved on its surface. Noiz took it and put it on Aoba's finger. "I know we are still too young, but I wanted to make you a promise. This, what we have, is for always."

At the kitchen door, Tae nodded, and her friend wiped a tear off her eye with the hem of the apron she was wearing.

Aoba turned beetle red at noticing all the eyes in the room focused on him. He wanted to hide under the table, and at the same time he wanted to run out the house and shout from the rooftops that he was engaged. His knees felt weak and his hands were trembling terribly, even under Noiz' ones (which were steady as ever, the calm bastard). So in the end he just embraced Noiz tightly and let the room start clapping and cheering loudly.

"Come on, kiss him, what are you waiting for!" a woman yelled.

"Hey, no need for that!" Mizuki reacted quickly. "Give them a bit of privacy, their room is just upstairs!"

Aoba disentangled himself from Noiz chest and chuckled, feeling really happy. He looked Noiz in the eye, finding the same joy in his bright green eyes, but suddenly someone launched themselves on Aoba's arms for a congratulating hug, and they both grinned and shared a look that said "Laters!" while their friends surrounded them with pats on the back and friendly greetings.


	13. Chapter 13

As people started to leave, Aoba meant to tidy up the living room, but was stopped before he could even begin.

"Let us do the cleaning up", one of Tae's friends said, pushing him to the hall. "We can manage perfectly well; you have better things to do, young man."

"What?!"

The woman gestured the startled Aoba to Noiz, who was leaning against the stairs with a knowing smile on his face.

"Why don't you spend a bit of quality time with your fiancée?"

She winked at Aoba and turned again to the kitchen, pleased with herself and leaving a very embarrassed Aoba standing on the hall. Tae poked her head out the kitchen door.

"Boys, you slept scarcely a couple of hours last night… Go upstairs and rest!"

"I think we will go for a walk instead", Aoba suggested.

He looked at Noiz for confirmation, and the younger boy just shrugged and grabbed his jacket from the peg.

Once outside, they started walking, hand on hand, without a clear destination. Aoba made up his mind after a moment and made them head towards the nearest park. It was just a square, not very large and not very green either, but it had benches and there wouldn't be children playing at the swings at that hour, given that it was already dark.

"I didn't remember Decembers in Japan were so warm… Especially compared to Germany", Noiz commented.

"The North Pole is warm compared to Germany!" Aoba said, chuckling.

Noiz grinned and looked at Aoba with fondness.

"So… is there a hidden reason for this walk?"

"Just to make sure you cleared your head…"

"What are you talking about? My head is a hundred per cent clear!"

"Sure, sure… I haven't seen you drinking before, with Mizuki… and I can't definitely smell the alcohol in your breath…" Noiz wrinkled his nose and blew into the hollow of his hand to sniff his own breath. Aoba giggled and shook his head; his boyfriend was really cute when he acted his age. "Besides, I get that you needed a bit of drinking to dare proposing in front of everybody…"

A shadow crossed Noiz' features, and he looked suddenly serious.

"Noiz?"

"After all the thought I gave to it… I wasn't sure of what you would answer."

Aoba stopped in his tracks, appalled.

"What? Why would I reject you? Are you unsure of my feelings after all we have been through?"

"It's not like that", Noiz hurried to assure his boyfriend, stroking the back of his hand in circular movements. "But, now that you have met Sei… it's not like I can offer you something worthy in Germany after all."

Aoba stared at him with his most determined face, the one Noiz knew so well.

"I made up my mind when I went to Germany with you, Noiz, and nothing has changed. I still want to be by your side and follow that path, and if there are some obstacles at first, well, it was to be expected, wasn't it? Besides, you have your entire career planned in your hometown."

"Those are my father's plans, not mine", Noiz grunted softly, kicking a pebble on the pavement.

"Yes… but you actually like them". Noiz raised his head and opened his mouth to protest, but Aoba smirked and kept talking before Noiz could retort anything. "Don't you dare to deny it! I am there too, and I watch you every day… You wouldn't work so hard if you didn't have a strong motivation. This has nothing to do with when you only pretended to blend in school to be allowed to keep playing Rhyme! You are actually enjoying studying and working for your father."

Noiz shrugged with downcast eyes. He clearly hadn't thought about that before, but now that Aoba was bringing up the topic, he was considering it.

"Well…" he muttered after a short silence. "I don't dislike it. And I can assure you that being able to live with you is a stronger motivation than Rhyme". He stared at Aoba's eyes again, until he raised their linked hands to kiss his boyfriend's wrist. "But you have to think of yourself too, Aoba. Now you have cleared what happened to you and have regained your memory. Besides, you have won a twin brother and also that ridiculous childhood friend of yours has come back to the island. In exchange, what can Germany offer to you? The scales are unbalanced, don't you see?"

Aoba sighed and shook his head.

"You, stupid excuse of a fiancée", he muttered, and then suddenly raised his voice. "You are what make the scales even! I said I would start over in Germany, and that's what I will do! With time, I will learn German properly, I will find a job and I will make friends. Just give me a bit of credit, okay? And about Sei, it's true that it has been a surprise, but we still have three weeks of holidays to spend in Midorijima, right? I will spend all this time with my brother, and then I will support him from our new home. I can talk with him every day through Skype if I want, and come visit again in the summer holidays. We can ask him to visit us, too."

"So, you are really decided?"

Noiz looked at him with a half smile dancing on his lips. Aoba smirked and stood on his tiptoes to kiss him.

"You silly, silly brat…" he breathed against his lips, their puffs of warm air mixing in the cold air.

They resumed walking until they arrived to the park and sat on a bench, facing the bushes and the metal swings. As Aoba had hoped, the place was empty and rather dark. Nobody would stare at them if Noiz threw his arm around Aoba's shoulder or if he kissed his temple and nuzzled his cheek, as he was doing right then.

"Noiz…" Aoba whispered, breaking the silence. "There was something else I wanted to talk about…"

Noiz sighed and hid his face on Aoba's hair.

"I knew there was a hidden reason…"

Aoba let go a forced grin. He felt tense about what he was going to suggest Noiz, but he wanted to tell him all the same. He was sure that if he let the issue for another day he would get cold feet and let the chance pass forever, so it was then or never for him.

Noiz peeked from Aoba's shoulder and, at seeing his concerned expression, sat up properly and encouraged Aoba to speak with a gesture.

"Well… Ah… Shit, I don't know how to start… Yesterday, when Sei used his power with me… Well, I hadn't experienced myself what it was to be in the receiving end. Since granny told me about this power, this Scrap thing, I had been only scared of it, and watching myself using it in Rhyme to break layers of other people's mind didn't help at all… But now I know that Scrap can be used in another way. The same way it can break minds, it can also heal them."

"Hmmm. So?"

"I think… I think that… perhaps… I could use Scrap with you."

Noiz cocked his head to the left, considering Aoba's words.

"With me. What for? Do you mean, fighting in Rhyme?"

"Ah, no. I don't have an allmate anymore and… well, I don't think I want another one. If you want me to play Rhyme, you can always lend me one of your Usagimodokis… but that wasn't what I meant."

Noiz' frown deepened in concentration, and he seemed about to say something but refrained. Instead, he just shrugged and asked:

"Then?"

"I want to enter your mind. I don't need a Rhyme field for that, although the sensation is similar. I want to try to help you to recover the sensitivity on your skin, Noiz."

"Can you do that?"

"I think I can, yes. At least… at least I can try, I can't promise but… Wouldn't it make your life easier? There are a lot of things you are missing right now… Small things, but important all the same."

Noiz rested his forearms on his knees and studied the dirt and occasional turf on the ground.

"I can't miss what I have never had", he said at last. "But if you want to try it, just do it."

Aoba smiled widely and stood up.

"Great! Then, let's go, let's come back home!"

"What, you want to do it right now?"

"Of course, yes!"

Aoba pulled Noiz' arm, impatient, until his surprised boyfriend reacted and got to his feet. They walked back talking about lesser things, commenting on the Christmas party. Once at home, they waved Tae and Sei and went upstairs to Aoba's bedroom, closing the door behind them.

"Ah… What now… Sit on the bed", Aoba asked, nervous.

Noiz did as told. He looked as calm as ever, and even though Aoba was able to peer through his default calm mask, he couldn't find any sign of nervousness in him at all. The knowledge that Noiz trusted him to that extent was almost overwhelming, and he wished he could be as certain of the good outcome of this as his boyfriend. It could work or not, but was he a hundred per cent sure that he wasn't going to hurt Noiz' mind? He wiped his sweated palms on his jeans and approached Noiz.

"Okay… Close your eyes and listen only to my voice…"

"It's a gorgeous voice."

"Oh, shut up! Just listen, alright? Don't speak!" Hesitant, he breathed deeply. Now was the moment. He added a nuance to his voice and spoke again. "I'm going to enter your mind, Noiz. I'm coming inside now."

Noiz gasped in surprise and everything around them turned black.

The dizzy sensation of everything spinning and blurring was truly similar to enter a Rhyme field. Then, after a moment, his mind got used to the new environment and the dizziness stopped. Only that, that time, instead of finding himself on a Rhyme playground, a digital platform with bright lights, Aoba was inside a dim lit room. It was completely empty, apart from a window, facing night city lights, and a child sitting on the floor. He didn't need to come closer, although he did so, to know the boy was sobbing or to recognize who he was.

Aoba crouched beside him and called his name in a quiet voice.

"Noiz…"

The child raised a face full of tears and mucus, and it was indeed Noiz. He might have been seven or eight years old, and Aoba thought that if he wasn't crying and in dire need of a handkerchief, he would be a really cute and charming little boy. He rummaged in his jeans pockets until he found a clean tissue.

"Here, use it."

The boy blew his nose without a word.

"What's the problem, love?" Aoba asked, not daring to reach for the boy's fair hair.

The child rubbed one of his eyes with his little fist and a sob escaped his lips.

"They said they would come to see me before sleeping time, and it's already night but they haven't. They forgot again."

Aoba's heart clenched.

"I'm sure they will come, of course they will."

"You don't know that". The boy shrugged, and the gesture was totally Noiz'. "They often forget. Mum and dad are too busy to think about me."

Aoba looked around to think of something to say. The room was unfamiliar; he could remember a bit Noiz' bedroom in his family house, and it wasn't like that. Noiz had told him, just the once, without many details, that he had been locked in his bedroom for years, forced to study there with tutors, eat there and play there on his own. Always on his own. But the bedroom Aoba remembered was big and colourful, with a computer, books, a videogame console and lots of toys and games, mostly electronic toys like robots or remote control planes which were Noiz' favourites. In contrast, that room they were in now was completely bare. Aoba wondered if that was the way Noiz saw his bedroom in his mind: empty of human contact, hence empty of everything.

Then, suddenly, the boy stood up and walked to a wall, and bumped his head against it, hard. Alarmed, Aoba crawled to his side.

"Hey! Stop it! Don't you hear me? Stop it right now!"

Because the boy repeated his action, again and again, so hard that soon his forehead was bleeding. Aoba didn't hesitate this time and threw his arms around the small frail body, wrapping him with his own one. The child was tense inside his embrace.

"Let me go…" he muttered with a weak voice.

"No, I won't! Look, I don't know if your parents are coming or not, but I will be by your side, get it?"

The child tsked.

"That's what everybody says. And then they leave."

"I won't leave, I swear!"

"I don't believe you!" Noiz yelled, and tried to bump his head against the wall again.

Aoba stopped him short, but the boy started weeping and trembling again. He held him tight until the child seemed to calm down a bit, although he still was sobbing quietly. Then he cleaned the streak of blood going down his temple with the hem of his t-shirt, since he didn't have anything else. He stroked the boy's hair and back in what he expected were reassuring movements and started to rock the two of them, trying to calm down the distressed child in his arms.

"I will be here for you, I promise. Always, Noiz, please believe me."

After a long while, the boy cried himself to sleep. Aoba was exhausted and heartbroken. How many times had Noiz felt like that when he was a kid? He still refused to talk about it, leaving absentminded hints for Aoba from time to time to guess what had been life for him in his childhood.

Aoba himself had been a lonely kid, raised first in an orphanage, where he didn't speak to anybody but his inner friends, and then, once in the Seragaki household, after barely two years of happiness, alone again most of the time when he came back from school to an empty house, while Tae worked at the clinic. He didn't like to think about those times either, but although it had been tough for him, and used to cry a lot, he still had Tae at dinner time every evening and on Sundays, and he also had Koujaku, his cool older friend. Noiz didn't have anybody.

He lied down on the floor, with the boy firmly wrapped in his arms, and napped and awoke a number of times until the daylight started to come through the window. Noiz was a light sleeper, as he was also in the present, and he was agitated by nightmares and shudders from time to time. When the sun was high enough and the kid was fully awake, Aoba stood up and looked by the window.

The view was more or less the same that could be seen from Noiz' parents' house, but everything seemed far away and a little blurry. The small rear garden of the house was nowhere to be seen, and the nearest building didn't look as if it was at the other side of the street, as it really was.

Noiz sat down on the floor, hugging his knees as the previous evening. There wasn't anything to do inside those bare four walls, nothing to look at even. Aoba sat close to the boy and tried to distract him with conversation. Noiz interrupted his attempts after a moment.

"Why are you still here?"

"I told you, I'm here to stay", Aoba answered.

"Are you my imaginary friend or something? Why would I want someone as old as you as my imaginary friend?"

Aoba let go a long and loud sigh.

"I am not your imaginary friend… Look, I am from… I don't know how to tell you. From your future?"

"Really."

The boy looked completely unimpressed, and Aoba thought he was already decided to ignore him and pretend Aoba wasn't there.

"Well, I don't know if it's really your future, or if in your head you will be always a little boy. But in my reality we love each other, and that's why I'm going to stay by your side, no matter what."

The kid stared at him through squinted eyes.

"Are you aware that I'm not buying a word, aren't you?"

Shit, kid or not, Noiz is Noiz in every reality, Aoba thought, biting his lower lip.

"Look at this: it's an engagement ring. You gave it to me some hours ago". The boy showed at last some interest, studying the ring in Aoba's finger as if trying to discern if it was genuine or not. "And I accepted you."

Noiz raised his eyes to study Aoba next. Was he trying to figure out why would he propose to someone as Aoba? That thought made him nervous. He couldn't be very impressive to a kid. He surely would laugh at Aoba's face, or would sneer at him. But after a long while with his eyes glued to Aoba, eyeing him up and down as if he wanted to study every inch of him, the boy just turned to the wall again, without a comment.

The hours passed slowly. The young man tried to start a conversation again, but Noiz huffed.

"What are you, a parrot? Why do you need to talk all the time?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to bother you. I thought you might be bored and talking would alleviate boredom."

"It's just giving me a headache, so shut up already."

 _So rude_ , Aoba thought, trying not to hold a grudge. _But that sounds also as something Noiz would say. Does he still find me so loud and too talkative?_ He clicked his tongue, upset. His boyfriend had never complained, but perhaps he had always found him annoying. _I hope I have the chance to ask him when we come back to normal._

By the time their shadows started to stretch on the ground Aoba was bored to death. Noiz refused to speak, so he could only resort to daydream. He missed having his other personalities to talk with.

The sun set behind the skyline of buildings, and nobody had come in the room. Oddly, Aoba wasn't hungry nor thirsty, but they weren't physical beings anyway. He had to remind himself from time to time that they were still inside of Noiz' mind.

When the night came, the boy stood up and started hitting the door with his fists.

"Let me go!" he yelled. "Open this door already, I want to go out! Mum! Mum!"

Aoba felt useless. The only thing he could do was watch as the boy kept punching the door and shouting until his throat grew sore. Then he slipped down to the floor, on his knees, and sobbed quietly. Aoba crawled to his side and hugged him.

"Ssssshhh, don't cry", he muttered. "I'm still here, can you see me."

He almost expected to be pushed aside, but surprisingly Noiz allowed the lasting embrace. He soon felt those tiny hands fisting the side of his shirt and his front wetted in tears from Noiz' face. The young man looked for a more comfortable posture and sat with his back resting against the door. Noiz placed his head on Aoba's lap and stayed there, more calm by then, while Aoba petted his hair during what seemed hours.

He didn't know the exact moment he fell asleep, but when Aoba opened his eyes again there was daylight in the room. He sighed and stood up, letting the boy sleep. His whole body ached thanks to sleeping on the hard floor, and his legs were sore. He started jogging around the room to regain his blood flow.

Noiz opened his eyes, half lidded with sleep, and watched him for some minutes.

"Good morning!" Aoba greeted with a smile. "Do you want to do some gymnastics with me? Your body will rot if you are sitting down all day!"

The kid huffed and looked away. But after a while he also stood up and started copying Aoba's stretches.

"Very well!" Aoba approved. "What would you like to do now?"

"Hmmmm. Jumping."

And they jumped, until Aoba couldn't move anymore and going back to a sitting position was the most alluring idea ever. Noiz sat by his side and, to Aoba's utter surprise, reached out his arms and hugged the young man's middle.

"Oh! What's this?"

"You are still here."

"I told you. I'm not going anywhere."

"But I thought you would leave as my parents."

Aoba smiled a bit and hugged him back.

"No, I'm going to stay. For as long as you will have me."

"Will you be here tomorrow, too?"

"If you want me to be, yes."

The boy nodded, and Aoba smiled against his blonde hair, more light coloured and thinner, finer than the hair Aoba was used to, and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. _Noiz_ , he sighed. On his mind, his Noiz and this small one were starting to mix, their contours and face features blurred and superposing themselves. It must have been the boredom, but although Aoba could count two nights, he felt as if he had been there, locked in that room, for months or years. And while he held little Noiz to his chest, he decided it was okay, he could be there forever if needed, as long as Noiz wanted him by his side. He would protect him, from his parents, from the world, from himself. As he closed his eyes, he felt a salted tear on the corner of his mouth, and he realised with surprise that the tear was his, not from Noiz.

Then a finger wiped the tear from his cheek, and when he opened his eyes again Noiz was staring at him in awe.

"It's a tear", the boy stated, as if he couldn't just believe it.

"Ah… Yes, sorry."

Aoba rubbed his face with his forearm, cleaning any evidence of tears. The boy reached a trembling small hand to Aoba's face and traced back the line the disappeared tear had drawn down Aoba's cheekbone.

"It's okay, Noiz. I'm not crying now, see?"

"I don't like to see you crying."

"I know, I know… It's okay now."

The boy rested his head on Aoba's lap again, but this time facing his torso and hooking his arms around Aoba's waist. And even though they had had some sleep the previous night, the two of them fell asleep shortly.


	14. Chapter 14

The moment he awoke, he Aoba felt an emptiness in his hands and they started to reach for Noiz' little body, missing his warmth. Was it still day? Was it night time? He didn't dare to open his eyes and check and, anyway, day or night meant nothing in that dull bare space where days stretched and mixed.

"Noiz…" he breathed out.

"Aoba, I'm right here".

That… wasn't the voice he expected. It wasn't highpitched and toneless. It was adult, a voice arrived from another dimension. Aoba felt the urge to reject it; perhaps if he closed his eyes more tightly, he would feel again the painful load of that abandoned child that he had to protect.

"Aoba, please, open your eyes, you are making me worry."

He obeyed, of course; how could he ignore that voice? And what he found himself staring at were a pair of gorgeous green eyes, set in a handsome face. Aoba looked around, dazzled. Where was he? Where was the empty room? He needed a couple of heartbeats to recognise his own old bedroom in Midorijima, in Tae's house.

Noiz wrapped him in his arms, and Aoba's agitated mind started to settle down. He closed his eyes again; he was at home, he was okay, Noiz was okay. A tear started rolling down his cheek and, like the day before, a finger that wasn't his wiped it away with care. Aoba opened his eyes again, in time to see how Noiz licked his own wet finger. Aoba chuckled.

"Don't do that…"

"I wanted to check if it was still salty… And yes, the taste is the same as always."

Aoba's pulse started to race again.

"And the rest? How is the rest?"

Noiz didn't answer at first. He was deep in thought, as if considering what his answer should be. Aoba started to worry. Was Noiz alright? What if he had fuck his mind up? He wasn't in a coma like some of his old "victims", but still. He wasn't as used as Sei to use his power, and it still was an unpredictable thing to him.

"Noiz? Is your mind alright?"

"I guess so. I can't notice any change in it."

"But? There is a but, right?"

Instead of replying, Noiz watched Aoba with inquiring eyes and raised a hand to touch his jaw. Then, his hand went up his face, caressing his skin until it arrived to his hair. He kept touching, playing with his blue locks, without a word. Aoba placed his own hand over his boyfriend's, stroking it with his thumb, and then he took it and kissed his knuckles. A gasp escaped through Noiz' semi open lips.

"What do you feel?"

"I feel… you", the boy answered, shaking his head in confusion. "You are warm, and the touch of your skin is so soft… I had imagined so, but it's different. And your hair, too, everything is different."

"Noiz!" Aoba opened his arms and hugged his boyfriend with joy and relief in equal parts. "Then it worked! We did it!"

"But… but I don't understand", Noiz muttered against his shoulder. "Aoba… I can't understand anything!"

Still grinning, Aoba let go of him and glanced at his face.

"What do you mean? What is it that you don't understand?"

Noiz studied his own hands for a moment, as if he couldn't believe they really were able to convey that amount of information to his brain.

"All of my life, I have imagined how everything felt, I built my own world of how everything was. But now, just touching your face and your hair feels different. That means… I have to rebuild all my images of how the world is."

"And isn't it exciting?"

Aoba's smile widened as he grabbed his boyfriend's hands and started stroking them again.

"Does this feels good?" Noiz nodded. "Great. Imagine all the other things that will feel good". The boy's eyes sparkled, and Aoba could easily imagine what was on his mind right then. _This pervert kid…_ "And for the others, for the ones that don't feel good… Well, I'm here to help you with them, alright? If I have survived nineteen years old with headaches and cuts and scratches, you will survive, too!"

Noiz smiled fondly at his boyfriend, looking less puzzled and more reassured than before.

"You are to blame if now I can feel through my skin, so of course you will be responsible for it, hmmm?" the boy said in a low and seductive voice.

He kissed Aoba and pushed him gently on the bed, and Aoba couldn't help to lean back until he was lying down with Noiz covering his body, enjoying the kiss. The sudden music of Aoba's coil made the two of them jump, startled. Aoba tried to push himself upwards, leaning on his side on his forearm, and answered the call.

The floating screen showed the face of an unknown man, who started to speak quickly in German. Confused, Aoba glanced at Noiz, who came closer in order to appear in the coil's view. He answered the man in the same fast German, leaving Aoba dazed and able to understand just isolated words now and then. He heard 'coffee shop', 'kitchen' and some days of the week. Then Noiz moved aside again and the man started to speak really slow to Aoba in German. He asked him his name, if he was going to stay in Karlsruhe, if he liked to work in a kitchen. Aoba understood the questions, more or less, and answered in his hesitant German. He felt really self-conscious. _Please, let my sentences be not too wrong…_ By his side, Noiz was hiding a chuckle behind his fist, what didn't help him to calm his nerves at all. The man in the screen called for Noiz again, and turned to his fast speech that Aoba couldn't follow at all, and then the call was ended.

"So? Tell me!"

Noiz laughed and reached for Aoba's hands.

"Congratulations, you have your first job in Europe!"

"Whaaat? But… but…" Aoba's mind was about to explode with confusion. So that had been his job interview, really? But what about Midorijima? "But Noiz, I wanted to stay with Sei for a while!"

"Relax… I've explained him that we are now on holidays in Japan, and that we are not coming back until January, when the schools start, and he is okay with that. The employee they have to replace will work until the end of the year anyway. The job is in that coffee shop we go sometimes on Saturdays, the one that is in front of the park."

"Really? I love that place! And the baristas are always very friendly and polite."

"You will be working in the kitchen, not at the till or the coffee machine."

Aoba nodded.

"That's fine for me. That way I don't need much German."

"That's what the man has said, that he just needed that you were able to understand simple instructions. I'm… well, I'm happy for you, but it's not a dream job at all, you realise, don't you?"

"I'm okay with that! It's perfect until I improve my German, and everything will suit me just to avoid being bored and feeling useless at home."

Noiz bit his lower lip.

"I… was going to suggest my father to hire you for the warehouse or for delivering mail in the office…"

"No! I told you I didn't want to work for your father, didn't I? The coffee shop suits me better."

"You sure?"

Aoba answered with an almost caste kiss on his boyfriend's lips. They gazed at each other's eyes for a moment. He knew it was a lame thought, but the amount of love he could see in Noiz' eyes took his breath away.

"Noiz…" he let his index go down the curve of Noiz' jaw and further down, until he reached the fabric of his t-shirt. "Before we were interrupted by the call, I was thinking there's something you haven't let me do since the very beginning…"

"What do you mean?" Noiz frowned, but his eyes had a mischievous glint.

"Lie down on my bed, come on. I will show you what I mean."

Two minutes later, their shirts had vanished and Noiz was lying on his back with his wrists tied up his head, on the headboard.

"He! I haven't seen this part of you in a while!" Noiz snickered.

"Well, I assure you it's still here", Aoba muttered in a low voice loaded with lust, crawling up Noiz' body until he was straddling his hips.

"Hmmm? Are you going to do me?"

"What?!"

And suddenly that familiar expression of a deer caught in the headlights was again on Aoba's face, and Noiz burst laughing heartily. Aoba blushed deeply, embarrassed, and punched his boyfriend on the shoulder; it was a hit without heat, but Noiz winced.

"Oh, sorry! Did it hurt?" Aoba rushed to apologise, mortified. Now Noiz could feel everything, not only the good stuff but also pain, he needed to remember.

"It was… different, again". Noiz grinned with satisfaction. "I don't mind, do whatever you want to me."

That didn't help Aoba's blush to subside. At all. But the young man decided to ignore his boyfriends teases and focus on what he wanted to do. Slowly, with measured and cat-like movements, he leaned down and kissed Noiz deeply, caressing the hard line of his jaw with his left hand. Then, after a moment, with his eyes still glued to Noiz ones, he moved back a bit and lowered his body again to reach for Noiz neck, sucking and biting the soft flesh with care. He kept looking back to his boyfriend's face to check his reaction: Noiz was staring at him with his mouth agape and his small eyebrows high on his forehead, his breathing already hitched. Aoba grinned with mischief.

"You know", he commented in a whisper, "every time I did this to you, you always had that bored expression on your face… when you didn't ask me specifically to stop it. Is it so boring now, hmmm?"

The boy shook his head. His cheeks were tinged in a light pink, and Aoba thought he only had seen him so cute and sexy very few times. While he kept working on every inch of Noiz's skin that he could reach, arms, shoulders, nipples, ribs, he realised that even though he of course enjoyed all the attention Noiz always gave to his body, a part of him missed being on top and having the control of their intimate moments. There was a sense of power in being able to decide when Noiz would wriggle and pant because the impatience was taking the best of him, Aoba's tongue going inside the creases of his groin but never touching his hard-on, and watching the way Noiz looked at him with undisguised hunger, but unable to sit up or touch him, and growing desperate together when their cocks brushed in a tantalising way, with too soft and short touches, instead of the hard pushes the two of them were craving right then.

When he couldn't stand it anymore, and just then, Aoba took the lube from the top drawer of his night table and poured a squirt on his fingers. Looking Noiz in the eye, he pushed two fingers inside his own butt hole, regretting not being able to give his boyfriend more of a show: from his lying position, he was sure Noiz couldn't see the way his thighs trembled with every push of his slicked fingers. The boy could use his imagination to supply images for that, of course, and maybe he was doing exactly that, because suddenly his pierced dick gave a couple of little jumps, as if it was yelling that it wanted to join the action as soon as possible. Grinning, Aoba lowered his head until he could lick at those metal pieces on Noiz' erection, lapping at them until they were wet and glistening, and then he curled his tongue around the slit, just a little bit, because the way Noiz was bucking his hips told Aoba everything would end too soon if he stayed down there too much time.

So he sat up after a moment, and after stopping to rub their dicks together ( _Ohmygod, those piercings feel too good against my dick,_ and the boy's hips jumped while groaning loudly), Aoba took his boyfriend's cock in his hand and placed it against his entrance. Chuckling at Noiz' desperate face, he still teased him a little bit, brushing the head against his hole two or three times; it felt delicious, but of course Aoba was as gone for words as Noiz right then, and he needed the real thing, and he needed NOW. He leaned on Noiz' torso and felt his hole stretch and swallow the totality of Noiz' cock, piercings and all, until his butt cheeks were touching the boy's pubic hair. He had to stop for a moment to get air into his lungs. Behind him, Noiz growled and started trashing his whole body, muttering his name again and again in a desperate litany. Balancing his body on Noiz' shoulders, Aoba started to move, trying to go slowly, allowing just a circular push of his hips against the boy's crotch, without taking it out a single inch, focussed on the pleasurable feeling of stretch, of being completely full, of owning Noiz' dick.

"Aoba!"

That wasn't a whisper anymore, but a full body shudder accompanied of a broken plea. Aoba gasped in surprise at seeing a tear in the corner of Noiz' eyes.

"Are you alright? Is this too much, do you need to stop?"

The boy shook his head.

"Just… move, I can't take it anymore. It's… too much, too intense."

Aoba could really relate, as it was how he felt the first times, especially the first times being on the receiving end. And sometimes, even now, with Noiz.

He sat up and started moving his hips up and down on Noiz' dick, keeping a good rhythm, forcing his thighs to support all the stress, feeling them tremble slightly when Noiz' face started to be too contorted in pain to hold back anymore and he started to impale himself harshly on every push, varying the angle to where it felt better, leaning back a bit to thrust his hips onwards and make the hard iron inside of him go still deeper, sweeter, feeling too good to be real. And then Noiz yelled his name and bucked his whole body, and before Aoba could reach for his own erection, still untouched except for some rubbing against Noiz' pubis, he felt his orgasm coming, prompted perhaps by the beyond description feeling of being filled with Noiz' seed, warm and wet and so, so sweet. He gave two, three thrusts and he was right there, his mind flying and trying to catch up with Noiz, suddenly in that place where just the two of them could dwell.

And it was sadly too short, it always was, and he came back to real Noiz and their pleasure, their mixed sweat and heavy breathing. While regaining his five senses and his heartbeats slowly calmed down, he wondered, not for the first time, if that cosy place inside of his mind where he met Noiz during orgasm was similar to where his different consciousnesses inhabited during all those years, a place where their souls could join, even though his bodies only had that consolation price that was sex, with its mirage of true union.

Aoba untied Noiz and finally rested on top of his body, feeling at last his arms wrapping him up in a tight embrace.

"Aoba…"

He rested his weight on his forearms to look at Noiz' face. He had a relaxed smile that Aoba hadn't seen before on him.

"Are you alright?" he asked, still a little unsure of the outcome of his power.

"I am. Thank you."

Their hug tightened again, and Aoba noticed a wetness on his face, and for a moment he couldn't guess whose were the tears that stained both their faces. Noiz wiped his own cheek, astonished, and then smiled again at his boyfriend.

"You sure you are going to stick with me? I might be a little lost right now without you."

"Always, meine Liebe", Aoba answered with his own fond smile, kissing him.


	15. Chapter 15

The Airport Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden was almost empty at six in the morning, and Aoba had to move from the spot he was standing several times to avoid his feet were mopped by the cleaners. But that was fine, because he thought he would fall asleep otherwise, even standing up.

His brother Sei's flight was scheduled to arrive at six fifteen a.m., and Aoba was eager to see him again in person, after two years of seeing each other only through a screen.

Thinking of screens, Aoba's mind started to drift again into sleep while his tired eyes kept looking at the "Arrivals" one. His sight was so unfocussed and blurry that he almost jumped when he finally saw the name of his brother's flight with a gate number attached to it. Being a small airport, he didn't need to search much, and in five minutes he saw Sei walking out the door of his gate. In the same instant he rested his sight upon his brother, Sei turned his face and looked him in the eye, as if the twins were the two poles of a magnet. They smiled at each other shyly while Sei approached Aoba.

 _It feels so strange hugging him at last…_ , Aoba thought while he wrapped his brother in a tight embrace. After all, they had had so little time to know each other physically… Just those three weeks after Aoba rescued Sei from the Oval Tower. They talked to each other every day through Skype or their coils, sometimes more than once a day, and in occasions they chattered for hours. But not even that, wonderful as it was, could alleviate the feeling of lost time between them. The hugs they had lost while growing up, for example.

After a minute, they let go of each other, studying their faces with a wide grin.

"You look good", Aoba started, "you aren't so thin anymore. I bet granny's pastries have something to do with it, right?"

Sei chuckled.

"Of course! If I'm not careful, the next time you see me I will be sporting a nice round belly."

Aoba tried to imagine his slender brother being _fat_ , and shook his head in disbelief.

"You look fine, too. But you always did."

At Sei's words, Aoba's cheeks felt suddenly warm and he had to hid a satisfied grin. They headed to the coffee shop for breakfast.

"So, how's Noiz?" Sei asked as soon as they sat on their table with hot coffees and toasts.

Sei had asked Aoba to order an "European breakfast" for him, and the boy studied the bread with a deep frown before biting it, and for a moment Aoba thought he would have to order something else, but in the end Sei shrugged and started munching the toast. _I'm glad he wants to try all kind of different things while he is here_ , Aoba thought. _I will make sure these two weeks are packed with a lot of new experiences for him!_

"Well, he came back from a business trip with his father last night", Aoba explained. "Their flight was late, and he was so knackered that fell asleep on the couch with his clothes on. I had to drag him to bed and take his shoes and his suit off, at least!"

"Oh, poor him! So we'll leave him sleep in, right?"

Aoba nodded, smiling. He wouldn't say it to his brother, but he felt very proud of Noiz. Not that he wasn't proud before, because he had always looked up to his boyfriend, but right then he was managing to cope with his studies in the Engineering Faculty and at the same time taking more responsibility in his father's company. Aoba always thought that, if it were him, he wouldn't be able to cope, at all. It was too much. But Noiz was surprisingly clever and hard-working and, although he came back home absolutely wasted every evening, Aoba knew that he secretly enjoyed that way of life. Also, being his father's right hand in the company had definitely changed the way Noiz, and Aoba, were considered inside the family.

It also helped the fact that Aoba now had a decent job, of course. Noiz' family would always consider highly only the people who achieved success in their careers and made good money out of them: some things would never change. But although Aoba didn't think great of them, he couldn't deny it felt good knowing that he was welcomed and well regarded in Noiz' parents home.

Sei, as always, was able to read the thread of Aoba's thoughts with just a glance.

"And how about your job, Aoba? You are some kind of celebrity right now, aren't you?"

The young man blushed furiously, as every time someone brought up the topic of his success. He focused on his cup of coffee and dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand.

"Hardly! Since the audience only hears my voice, of course I don't get recognised or asked for an autograph… thanks God! I don't think I would like that kind of attention, it makes me feel uncomfortable."

' _Uncomfortable_ ', in fact, was an understatement. Saying that he died of embarrassment and had huge panic attacks were he would shut himself inside the closest toilet for half an hour or until Noiz came to his rescue would be more accurate. And that happened every time someone recognised him.

Sei chuckled and raised his half empty cup of coffee.

"Let's toast for you, and be glad you have become a radio celebrity, then!"

Aoba chuckled at this.

"In fact, I think I have become famous only because they laugh at my awful accent, and at how I struggle to find my words in German… But Noiz says they just find my accent exotic and cute and, as long as the audience is there for me, I don't have to mind at all."

A deep crease formed between Sei's eyebrows.

"And what if they grow tired once the novelty fades? Do you really think they only listen to your program because of that?"

Aoba shrugged, a bit embarrassed of admitting what he was about to tell his brother.

"Well, in fact…" he muttered in a tiny voice. "Sometimes I use our power to, you know, give a bit more of intention to my words… I'm not using it to sell anything… perhaps just once or twice… I try not to use it, anyway."

It was Sei's turn of chuckling. Aoba looked at him and was surprised to see a naughty grin on his face.

"What are you embarrassed for?" Sei asked, amused. "There's nothing wrong in using our power. Haven't we suffered enough because of it?" Aoba nodded, deadly serious. "Then, tell me what's wrong in using it from time to time to our own benefit."

"But…" Aoba searched on his mind but for a moment he couldn't find any objection to come with. After a little hesitation, he asked: "Wouldn't it be like cheating?"

Sei took his brother's hands in his, and his grin became a fond little smile when he answered Aoba.

"You are a great guy. Honest, caring and forthright. Your audience likes you, be sure of that. And using all that you can offer, all your talents, to keep offering a good show, is it cheating?"

Aoba bit his lower lip and thought about it. Then, suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by a new idea.

"Hey, Sei… Does it mean you use it, too?"

Sei grinned.

"Sometimes things need a little push to happen, you know…"

Aoba laughed heartily and ruffled his brother's hair.

"You naughty kid! And here I thought you were still the shy and innocent guy we freed from his tower!"

A small blush appeared in Sei's cheeks. _Oh, my… I didn't mean it like that!_ Aoba thought. _This boy is certainly full of surprises!_

"Do I want to hear more?" he asked aloud.

Sei just offered him a graceful shrug and smiled sweetly.

"We have two weeks to share confidences and gossips… For now, what about buying some breakfast for Noiz and going to your apartment? I could use a shower and a nap until Noiz gets up…"

Aoba's mind travelled fast to a cute asleep Noiz whom he could kiss before waking him up with coffee and croissants, and decided it was exactly what must be done. Standing up and leaving the coffee shop with his brother by his side and looking forward to see Noiz, show off his smart apartment and perhaps, in the afternoon, bring Sei to the radio station he worked at, he thought life could be good sometimes. And he was decided to enjoy it to the full.


End file.
